 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The Government of India has decided to move amendments in the General Insurance Business Nationalization Act, which will lead to privatization of the four general insurance companies. This will adversely affect the general public, which relies on the public sector general insurance companies and the recruitment in the future with mass privatization. To discuss more about this, we have with us Mr. Anand, the General Secretary of South Stone General Insurance Employees Association. Welcome sir. So to begin with, what are the provisions which you oppose in this act and what is the reason to oppose this act? Because the general insurance companies have lot of role to play in the country and to the public. Yeah, and now I want to say that the employees and officers in general insurance industry are on a war path. We have not waged a war, it is a war that is waged against us by the Government of India. A war that is waged against the people of this country by the Government of India. A Government of India has decided to amend the General Insurance Business Nationalization Act 1972, where ordinance was passed in 1971 to nationalize 107 private insurance companies. There were 107 private insurance companies in the year 1971 and the Government of India then Government of India decided to nationalize because there are lot of fraudulent activities that were taking place. Corporate houses were operating in general insurance at that time. Nata was there, Berla was there, TVS was there. You name any company in India, big corporates in India, they were owning the company prior to 1971 also. They were indulging in lot of fraudulent activities. That is why it was nationalized in 1971. These companies are also operating now after the liberalization policies and the market was opened up to the private insurance companies. They also started their operation in 2001 and they are also now in operation. But before 1971, because of the fraudulent activities, it was nationalized. Now an amendment has come. In 2015-16, they brought one amendment and said that after 1971, there are four companies who are established out of the 107 companies. They made it as four companies, public sector general insurance companies and they were national insurance company, New India insurance company, Oriental insurance company, United India insurance company, headquartered at Kolkatta, New India from Bombay, Oriental from Delhi, United India from Chennai. And now in 2016, they brought one amendment in that Jibna Act. They made a small change in that act and brought a section 10B which speaks of 51% holding of the government of India and it talks that 49% can be sold out to the private parties. That is the first amendment that was brought in in the Jibna Act. So that pays way for the privatization of the public sector general insurance companies. So about at that time itself, government said 51% should be with the government strike should be at least 51% and balance can be sold out. It should not be less than 51%. Now the amendment has come that the 10B class which talks about 51% holding of the government that is completely omitted. The section itself is taken away from the act. That means the government can sell 100% of the shares to the private insurance companies or to any corporate people. That is why we are opposing because it is a total privatization, wholesale privatization aimed at selling all the four public sector general insurance companies as well as GAC reinsurance companies. That is why we are opposing it. The story before 1971 continues now also. Now one or two years back, big insurance companies, big private insurance companies like Reliance Health, LNT General, Apollo Munoz have closed the doors and merged with the other private insurance companies. So the story continues. The story of pre 1971 continues now also. What are the outcomes of this privatization move to the common public because these four are the general insurance companies, public sector companies. They have a lot of customers and what will the impact on them? Actually these general insurance companies are operating since 1971. Till 2000, when the market was open for the private insurance companies, there were a lot of schemes, social sector schemes, which we are giving free of cost. For example, if a person in a rural place, if he died due to a snake bite, or if he met with an accident falling from a tree and other things, we used to pay 2000 rupees, 3000 rupees to the person, even though he did not pay any premium, zero rupees, we did not collect any premium from them. Just a declaration and certificate from the VOO, we will be paying some amount to the deceased family. Likewise, if an artist burned or any fire accident took place, then we used to pay 5000 rupees to the families. These are we have paid it from our resources to the people, rural people, in order to bring them in the social state also. But now what is happening is after 2000, we could not sustain these social sector policies because our hands are also tied and we also want to compete with the private insurance companies. But after privatization, after the private companies were allowed also, we could not function very independently. The government asked us to implement various social sector schemes, such as Prime Minister Suraksha Bhima Yojana scheme, a scheme introduced by the Prime Minister of this country, current Prime Minister, who introduced this policy for a rupees, 12 rupees premium. If you have an account in the bank, any public sector bank or private sector bank, if you're an account holder, you have to just write a given letter to the bank manager that I am interested to opt for this policy, Prime Minister Suraksha Bhima Yojana policy and you can debit 12 rupees from an account every year, every year. A tea cost today, a glass of tea today costs 15 rupees to 20 rupees. Whereas a policy is given for 12 rupees per year and the sum introduced is 2 lakh rupees. If the person, the account holder dies due to an accident, he gets, the family gets 2 lakh rupees as a compensation. And this policy, we have issued for 17 crore Indians of this country, 17 crore Indians who have the bank account or who are the account holders of various banks. And this is a very cheap policy, subsidized policy and the claims ratio is around 350%. That means for 17 crores, we collected 200 crores premium, but we are paying a claim of around 750 crores to claim from our pocket. That means a huge loss for us. 350% is a huge loss for us. But is the government compensating for this? No, zero compensation. The government is not paying even 1 rupee from his kitty, from their kitty to the general insurance companies. The private companies are not doing these policies. 92% of these policies are underwritten by the public sector general insurance companies and not the private insurance companies. The Aishman Bharat, the government claimed that it is going to be a game changer in the 2019 election. The health insurance scheme that the government with big advertisements in the newspaper, they introduced this Aishman Bharat, health insurance scheme. And today we are covering near about 40 crore people of this country through this health insurance scheme and 95% of the scheme is covered by the public sector general insurance company. The private insurance companies are not participating. The crop insurance, Vassal Bhima Yojana, the government public sector general insurance companies are doing it. We are incurring huge loss in it, but we are happy that we are paying to our farmers. We are happy that we are paying to the presence of this country who are already suffering because of the various enactments, the acts that have been brought in. So we are happy that we are paying to our own farmers. But why the private companies are not doing it? Why the government is not pulling the private companies? The Corona war years, the frontline workers policies that they introduced, 50 lakhs covered to the Corona war years, frontline workers, we have already paid 1000 claims. That means 500 crores have already been given to the Corona war years. The private insurance companies are not doing it. And where do they spend? They spend huge amount. If you go and see the IRD account, public disclosure account of the private insurance companies, out of the total expenses, if it is 3000 crores, around 1600 crores, 1700 crores, is shown as marketing expenses, advertisement and publicity expenses. They are not spending for the subsidy schemes or social sector schemes. They have shown it as advertisement and publicity expenses. 3000 crores, 50 to 60% advertisement publicity expenses. Whereas public sector insurance company, if you see the IRD report, out of the total expense of 3000 crores, our advertisement publicity is 30 crores, 10 crores, 5 crores, just 1% or half a percent of the expenses. Whereas they are spending 50% of the expenses for advertisement publicity. So there are huge scams that are taking place, huge irregularities that are taking place. We do not know what the regulator is doing, but we are concerned because this publicity insurance company is providing cover to 50 crores of people of this country. Ordinary people of this country. So this should be protected. That is why we are in the States now. It is not the protection of job, it is not the protection of our salary. It is the protection of the insurance coverage for the ordinary people of this country. That is why we are worried more. So that being said, in 1972 the bill became an act for nationalizing the general insurance company. This is the 50th anniversary of the nationalization. So exactly after 50 years, you are going back a huge step. So what will be the impact of this on employment, as you said, and the future of the people who have subscribed to this insurance policies? It will definitely have a direct impact on the employment of the general insurance industry. Because right now we are around 53,000 employees working in the four publicity insurance companies. Last three years back we had a recruitment also. Now recruitment is stopped. Sensing this government anticipated this move. So they stopped recruitment in the general insurance industry also. They are not going to recruit any new number of employees in the near future also. And number two, why a lot of people are there, unemployed people, we are not going to recruit them number one. Number two, this IPO, if they say IPO earlier, they said 51% government holding will be there. When we said it is a privatization, they said no, no, it is not a privatization. It's a public participation. They used a very good word that it is a public participation only, not privatization. But at that time, even at that time also, there was a guaranteed for the reservation and other things because 51% was in the government and the public sector characteristic was not lost. It was an instrumentality of state at that time also. But now with the Ghibna Act amendment, 100% if you are going to sell their company means, it will no longer be an instrumentality of state. Then where is the question of reservation? So where is the question of recruitment? All these things will definitely have a native. And as far as public are concerned, the public comes to the insurance company, publicity insurance company for taking insurance office cattle. It's cow, it's goat, hen, pig, everything from A to Z we are giving. And we have branches, 40% of your branches in rural areas. We are penetrated to the rural areas. We have 8,000 branches, 40% are in rural areas. The private insurance companies have only 2% of the branches in rural areas and that too up to tier four only. We have branches up to tier six cities also where the population is less than 5,000. Now if you close our offices, no private insurance companies will open a shop in population less than 5,000. No private insurance company is going to open a office in tier five cities or tier four cities. Then what will happen to the people there? Who will give the insurance coverage to them? They talk of digital, they talk of agency and other things. But what about the ordinary people who is owning just two pairs of cow or goat or pig or sheep? Who will ensure their crop? Who will ensure their agriculture from set? They are not comfortable with the internet and other things. So it is a very difficult job. So we are the people who are going to the rural areas. The government should consider this. The public sector, general insurance companies have done human service to the people of this country. So the government should, they should have a rethink on this. And we are going to take up this issue with the public also because they are going to lose the insurance. So we are going for very vigorous campaign among the publics, pamphlet distribution, state corner meetings and we are going to mobilize a public opinion against this government move to privatize the public sector, general insurance companies. Thank you, sir, for joining us.