“We are demanding that development officers of LIC of India be ‘strengthened’ to fight the competition from private sector. The purpose of the march is to highlight before the Parliamentarians the anti-customer attitude and the management decisions that are destroying the marketing force of LIC of India and thereby derailing LIC,” stated an NFIFWI press note.

The NFIFWI said in August 2004, the LIC management drastically reduced the income and working expenses of the field force through an unilaterally imposed Growth Oriented Incentive Bonus Scheme-2004. Apart from the denial of expenses, the fall in income due to this scheme was 50-90 per cent At the time of introduction of the scheme, LIC management had claimed that this was being done to increase the market share from 88% to 95% but the result was a further decline of 24% i.e from 88% to 64%. “Now they are trying to unilaterally change the service conditions (which was a Memorandum of understanding) adversely and further inflict losses. In January, they have imposed a scheme without a fair and reasonable review of GOIB scheme 2004.”

The NFIFWI said the move to hike FDI in insurance sector is another course of action on the part of the Government to appease the private insurance companies. The main reason for this hike proposal is the fact that these companies are running up heavy losses.

The only social security measure available to a citizen of India at present is the Sovereign Guarantee given for LIC policies. Now there is a move to remove this facility also and deprive the citizen of this basic measure available to him.