The Hindu Business Line : Insurance wage hike pact almost clinched

Employees of the Life Insurance Corporation will get a 13.3 per cent hike in wages. The official notification is to be gazetted within the next 20 days, according to Mr K. Venugopal, General Secretary, All India Insurance Employees' Association.

The hike in wages will be effective from August 2002. Mr Venugopal said that employees in the Class III grade would get a hike of between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per month, while officers would get between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 per month. Senior management personnel in LIC would get a hike of about Rs 5,000 per month, he said.

Simultaneously, a wage hike for the employees of the four general insurance companies is also on the anvil.

Mr J. Gurumurthy, Secretary, All India Insurance Employees Association, said that general insurance companies had been offered parity with LIC pay scales. This is what they had been demanding earlier.

As per the terms of the offer, employees in the assistant and senior assistant grade would get a hike of between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 per month, while officers would get about Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 per month. Those in the managerial cadre would get a hike of between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 per month. However, it appears that the offer comes linked with some riders.

According to the proposal, transfers and redeployment would be within a radius of 250 km for employees in metros and within regions for employees in non-metro areas. Transferred employees would be offered a "disturbance allowance" of Rs 400 per month during the period of posting, while their house rent allowance (HRA) and city compensatory allowance (CCA) would be protected.

Then, there is a proposal to reduce the number of casual holidays to 12 from the nearly 25 days existing currently. There is also a proposal to increase the working hours by 15 minutes daily.

The unions are opposed to the linking of these issues with wage revisions and have argued that there should be no pre-conditions for wage hikes.

Mr Gurumurthy said that there would be a further round of talks in Hyderabad later next week after which the Government would notify the settlement.

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