EXCERPT
The Life Insurance Corporation of India which is a trustee of billions of rupees of the policyholders does not deem it necessary to maintain transparency in its dealings. It does not provide a rationale to its decisions, which is very dangerous for a Public Authority of its stature, where millions of employees and policyholders are being governed by its decisions. It is not behaving in a responsible and accountable manner.
If it can get away with repudiating billions of rupees due to its resigning employees as arrears, since 1997; I shudder to think about what could happen to the policyholders’ insurance policies worth billions of rupees, in future? What is the guarantee that such a huge Reserve Fund is safe with such an insurer that makes decisions arbitrarily or doesn’t maintain its records meticulously?
I also pity the other employees and policyholders who must be facing the nightmare of not getting information under their RTI queries, from LIC of India.
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VERY IMPORTANT
I have received the names of 45 employees (Class I Cadre) who were denied the arrears’ payment by LIC of India in this Charter dt. 2010; (5 pertaining to the WZO and 40 pertaining to the Central Office) through this RTI Application. This is incomplete information and the Corporation is unwilling to part with the statistics pertaining to the Corporation as a whole. But one can assume that approximately 25 employees of Class I cadre and 25 employees of the Class II Cadre have been denied the arrears’ payment in each Divisional Office of LIC of India.
According to the replies of the CPIOs and the FAAs of the Corporation, to my RTI query no. 3, LIC has 115 Divisional Offices, 8 Zonal Offices, 9 Audit Centres, Central Office and MDC spread all over India, thus there are 134 offices of LIC of India. Assuming that 6240 employees have been denied arrears’ payment in this Charter dt. 2010, and an equal no. of employees have been denied arrears’ payment in the Charters dated 2000 and 2005; approximately18720 employees have been denied arrears’ payment.
If each of these employees was supposed to have got Rs. 4,00.000/- the amount repudiated totally works out to a staggering Rs.74,88,000,000/-. (This is a very conservative estimate. The actual amount may be higher, depending on the actual number of resigning employees who have been denied arrears payment and difference in Retirement Benefits; and the revised wages of the resigning employees in the Higher Management Cadres of LIC of India.)
Where has all this money gone and how has it been accounted for in LIC of India’s Financial Statements? Has it even been accounted for, at all, by LIC of India, considering the fact that it does not have records of repudiated amounts due to its resigning employees as per its own admission, in reply to my RTI queries?
No wonder, Sri K. Rajivan Nair, Regional Manager, (CRM/CPIO) WZO, LIC of India, told me in his SELF-PROFESSED “OFF THE RECORD” phone call to me, FROM THE ZONAL OFFICE LANDLINE NUMBER on 30-03-2012, that “ASKING FOR ANSWERS FROM LIC IS LIKE BREAKING YOUR HEAD AGAINST A WALL. LIC WILL NOT ANSWER ANY OF YOUR REMAINING QUESTIONS. WE DO NOT WANT TO OPEN A PANDORA’S BOX BY REPLYING TO YOUR QUESTIONS.”
END OF EXCERPT
Read the full text of my RTI Second Appeal in my blog dated 18th August, 2014.
Interestingly, the CPIO, Central Office, LIC of India, admitted in her written response to this appeal that there is no reason on LIC's records; to repudiate our wage revision arrears!
So LIC's decision to repudiate our wage revision arrears is arbitrary! Not acceptable for an organization of LIC's stature!
In fact, not acceptable for any other enterprise too!
Employees are assets and not disposable commodities.
If there is no rationale for repudiation, why have the arrears been repudiated? Wages are our constitutional rights. Pay up, LIC of India. PRONTO.
