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Insurance Bills against India’s interests, says AIIEA

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: “People’s money for people’s welfare is our motto. Funds mobilised from people should be invested for public cause,” according to K. Venugopal, general secretary of All-India Insurance Employees’ Association (AIIEA), the largest employee’s union in the country.

“In spite of the bitter global experience in the wake of the economic meltdown, the government is going ahead with the two Bills that are detrimental to the country’s interests,” said Mr. Venugopal in an interview here on Tuesday.

He strongly opposed the two insurance Bills introduced in Parliament. “Insurance should be the natural monopoly of the public sector. Increase in FDI from 26 per cent to 49 per cent would result in more control of foreign capital on domestic savings.”

“We believe that the domestic savings accounting for 36 per cent of the gross domestic product of the country plays a major role in the development of infrastructure needed for a growing economy. LIC contributed Rs.4.80 lakh crore to Central and State sectors and infrastructure investment,” he said. Increasing the share capital of LIC from Rs.5 crore to Rs.100 crore might not stop at that, and this would also lead to disinvestment. The companies which wanted their foreign investment to be raised were themselves failed insurance companies in their respective countries.

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