The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Trust to provide social security cover to Carnatic musicians

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 21, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Trust to provide social security cover to Carnatic musicians

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: : A few artistes have come together to float a forum to provide Carnatic musicians social security cover.

Inaugurated last week, Sangeetha Seva Trust is the brainchild of ghatam player Suresh, vocalist R. Ganesh, and mridangam artiste S. Balashankar.

The idea is to "bring every Carnatic musician, both active and occasional performers, under a group insurance plan,'' said Dr. Ganesh.

Earlier efforts in this direction by many senior artistes had not succeeded.

The objective was to provide a minimum insurance cover of Rs. 1.5 lakh. The individual premium contribution in a group cover scheme was very low compared to personal insurance.

The premium would come to Re. 1 a day. The Trust would strive to provide cover under a common mediclaim policy for hospitalisation expenses. The Trust hoped to bring all musicians under a common accident cover to provide immediate succour to their family in the event of a misfortune.

Tie-up

The Trust has already tied up with LIC and United Insurance to provide cover to a group of 400 musicians.

The Trust would also raise an initial corpus from assorted sources to extend interim financial support to deserving aged musicians and music teachers.

R. Krishnaswamy of Narada Gana Sabha is the managing trustee.

T.S. Balasubramanium, a disciple of the famous G.N.B (G.N.Balasburamanium) and a retired senior divisional manager of LIC, and N.V. Subramanium, former General Manager of Southern Railways, are other trustees.

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