The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : LIC to commercially exploit its property

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 15, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

LIC to commercially exploit its property

Special Correspondent

70 locations have been identified across the country

A.K. Shukla, Chairman, Life Insurance Corporation of India, laying the foundation stone for the housing scheme in Chennai on Wednesday. — Photo : M. Vedhan

CHENNAI: : The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will commercially exploit its property in prime locations in different parts of the country.

It has identified 70 locations, where either commercial complexes or housing units will be constructed depending on the demand, LIC Chairman A.K. Shukla has said.

Internal valuation

Talking to presspersons after laying the foundation for a housing scheme taken up by the LIC for Indian Overseas Bank here on Wednesday, he said the returns from the property were poor despite their strategic locations. As per the LIC's internal valuation, their worth was Rs. 1000 crores. The market value was being evaluated. The property would be developed in phases, and the services of experts, including foreign consultants, would be sought. The LIC had formed a strategic business unit for leveraging its expertise in real estate. Completed projects would be sold at market rates.

The Corporation was also planning to park 15 per cent of its total investment in infrastructure. This apart, its investment in equities, now 8 per cent, would go up to 10 per cent. The increase would mean an additional allotment of Rs. 10,000 crores.

Mr. Shukla said the LIC had plans for increasing first premiums 50 per cent by 50 per cent and policies 30 per cent. In the last two months, the corporation had regained its market share by two per cent both in premium and policies. Not only in new policies but also in conventional policies, the business was going up.

Earlier inaugurating the construction work, Mr. Shukla said the corporation would go in for a data warehousing to have the records of all policies, which could be accessed by any branch. The project would materialise in two years.

IOB Executive Director A.R. Nagappan said the bank had a long-term association with the LIC.

LIC Zonal Manager G. Prabhakara said the engineering wing had diversified its activities in consultancy services. The present project was designed as per the needs of IOB.

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