Other States - Rajasthan   

A case for insurance cover for weaker sections

Special Correspondent

"Weaker sections require coverage as they are the worst affected in case of a calamity", say experts

JAIPUR: Insurance products do not find favour with the country's poor and weaker sections that need insurance cover more than anyone else, noted experts at a workshop on micro insurance here on Tuesday. The products under micro-insurance, which offer protection of assets and lives against insurable risks of target population of micro entrepreneurs, small farmers, the landless and women, have not made much breakthrough, they observed.

"The economically weaker sections of society require coverage through affordable insurance products as they are the worst affected in case of a calamity," C.S.Rao, chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Committee (IRDA), said delivering the keynote address at the workshop, organized by the Centre for microFinance (CmF).

"However, it is a challenge to convince the poor and the underprivileged to go in for insurance," Mr.Rao noted.

CmF has been set up in Jaipur with the aim to "widen, deepen and upscale" the micro finance movement in Rajasthan. CmF is an autonomous institution seeded under Sakh se Vikas, the Rajasthan micro finance initiative of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. The Centre is to function from the premises of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), at Sanganer near here.

Insurance cover to the poor and the economically weaker sections in the country would remain a far cry unless the insurance products were made simple, affordable and easily available, Mr. Rao felt. Self help groups; NGOs and local bodies could play a role in making the concept of insurance cover acceptable to the public. The Regulatory Authority was willing to modify the regulations and incorporate the feedbacks emerging out the two-day workshop, he promised.

"It would a bigger revolution than Green Revolution to cover the people of this country against unexpected and unaffordable situations," noted David M Dror, lead expert of the European Union's ECCP Project on "Strengthening micro health insurance units for the poor in India". "Cattle is insured but the cattle owner is not and this is wrong priority," Dr.Dror said pointing out that ill health was one reason for people remaining poor. The studies conducted by the World Bank indicate that one out of every four person hospitalized in this country belongs to the below poverty line category, he pointed out.

Dr.Dror said the insurance companies often tended to ignore the micro insurance segment assuming that it was not economically worth to tap the section.

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A case for insurance cover for weaker sections

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