Insurance workers hold rallies against planned reforms
About 200,000 insurance employees staged vociferous demonstrations in Bombay today to oppose the government's decision to open the insurance sector and resolved to stall the move through a powerful agitation.
The demonstration was organised jointly by all the unions of officers and employees working in the Life Insurance Corporation and General Insurance Corporation simultaneously in various parts of the country.
LIC Employees Federation general secretary A V Nachane said the government's claim that it would be opening the insurance sector only to Indian companies is fraudulent. "All these Indian companies will be entering the insurance sector only in collaboration with foreign insurance companies," he pointed out, adding, "The entry of foreign insurance companies through a backdoor will lead to one-way cross-border trade on a large scale in the form of reinsurance."
He said former Union finance minister P Chidambaram had proposed a restricted opening of the insurance sector to cover only the health
and pension segments, which account for less than 10 per cent of the insurance business. The present government intends to open the entire insurance sector, unmindful of the consequences, he alleged.
Nachane said that Chidambaram wanted passage of a bill that would give statutory status to the Insurance Regulatory Authority as the first step in the direction of a restricted opening of the insurance sector. The present government wants to open the insurance sector at one go by bringing forward a comprehensive bill that would provide statutory status to the IRA and amend simultaneously the LIC and GIC Acts, ending the monopoly status of the state sector.
He said once the insurance sector is opened, the government would not be required to approach Parliament for determining the terms and conditions for granting licences to private insurance companies.
Nachane added that Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has maintained a conspicuous silence on whether at all the private companies would be required to underwrite 50 per cent of their business from the rural sector as the LIC has been doing and pay tax on their profits for social security schemes.
He declared that Sinha, who is going in for large-scale divestments in the nationalised banks, including the State Bank of India, is also meaningfully silent on whether the ownership pattern of LIC and GIC would undergo a change.
Meanwhile, several central trade unions in Calcutta have given a call for 24-hour industrial strike on July 3 and planned a Protest Day on June 11 to protest against the railway and general Budgets.
In a joint statement, the leaders of the Indian National Trade Unions Congress, Centre of Indian Trade Unions, All-India Trade Unions Congress, and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha said the 1998-99 Budget was "anti-poor, pro-rich, anti-public sector, and anti-working class, aimed at propitiating the IMF-World Bank's dictates."
They said the Budget proposals were highly inflationary and would surely erode the real wages of the working people. "It is not swadeshi, but a sellout, with heavy concessions doled out to big business, MNCs, NRIs, endangering even national industries," they maintained.
The trade union leaders flayed the government for seeking to dismantle the public sector, which constitutes the edifice of India's economic development, and for allocating funds for the voluntary retirement scheme. By doing so, the Budget would accentuate the problem of mounting unemployment and retrenchment, aggravating the country's critical economic situation, the union leaders said.
Privatising the insurance sector is another dangerous move that will deprive the public exchequer of the various benefits, the union leaders claimed. The investment of provident fund deposits in private securities is bound to endanger the hard-earned savings of the workers and employees, they said.
The union leaders also flayed the plans to abolish the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act as an attempt to legalise illegal money and whitewash corporate delinquencies. They stated that the Budget with its petroleum price hike and increase in postal rates has put a heavy burden on the people of the country.
UNI
Budget '98
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