Near-total insurance strike

NEW DELHI, Dec 16 (PTI) — Insurance employees across the country today struck work and held demonstrations against the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill which seeks to open the sector to private, domestic and foreign investors.

However, while the joint front of trade unions of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and General Insurance Corporation (GIC) which called the day-long country-wide strike, claimed that the strike was ‘total’ with even the field staff joining it, the government said it evoked a partial response in GIC offices and a total one in LIC offices.

Official sources said in New Delhi that work at both LIC and GIC offices at Calcutta, Guwahati and Patna was badly hit due to the strike.

While class one employees of LIC attended offices, class two, three and four, comprising 90 per cent of the workforce abstained, they said.

In GIC, while attendance in Mumbai was 94 per cent, field offices’ work was paralysed as most of the employees struck work, the sources said.

In Chennai, the GIC management sources maintained that some of their offices functioned today.

In United India, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and National Insurance, subsidiaries of GIC, attendance ranged from 19 to 82 per cent, they said.

In Delhi activists of the All-India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA) and Life Insurance Employees Union (LICEU) staged demonstration in front of the new LIC building, shouted slogans against Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and accused the Centre of "mortgaging" the country’s sovereignty by bringing the "black Bill."

Similar demonstrations were held in Mumbai, the headquarters for insurance companies and other parts of the country.

General secretary of All-India Life Insurance Employees Association, Sanat Bhattacharya said in Calcutta the Bill was detrimental to the interest of about eight crore policy holders.

"The view that private and foreign insurance companies would provide sufficient fund for infrastructural development is a myth," he said.

Threatening that "insurance employees are now on warpath and are determined to stall government’s move.." The front said demonstrations and strikes will continue in protest against the Bill as long as the current Parliament session lasts.

In Rajasthan hundreds of employees affiliated to the National Confederation of General Insurance Officers Association and the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) today staged a strike in Rajasthan.

In a statement here, Assistant Secretay General (North) of the confederation, Vinay Verma said the work was disrupted in all the four insurance companies — National, Oriental, New India and United Insurance — in the state.

In a protest march on MI Road here, the striking employees made a "human chain" and submitted a "virodh patra" to the insurance authorities demanding to stop government moves that threatened the livelihood of working employees, Mr Verma said.

In Andhra Pradesh employees of General Insurance Corporation (GIC) and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) went on a day's strike today in Andhra Pradesh.

In response to the nationwide strike, rallies were organised by the employees of the GIC and LIC outside their offices in Vijaywada, Visakhapatnam, Nizamabad and other important towns in the state.

A rally was organised before the zonal office of the LIC here by the employees belonging to Insurance Employees Association, Insurance Workers Organisation (BMS) and Insurance Corporation Employees Congress.