All Members of NFIFWI-02-05-2021

Dear Comrades,

 

On 17-04-2021 at 4.00 PM special emergency central secretariat meeting was held to share the information regarding wage revision, clarification on issues related to wage revision and the 100% equitable relief that has been finalised by the LIC management and subsequent notification by Govt of India.

 

Every CS member in one voice, yet in their own way expressed their happiness and conveyed to the CS that every comrade throughout the country are overwhelmingly happy. They have also expressed that this is the first time that a Development Officer is feeling happy and we are able to see smiles on their faces along with other class of employees. Every one was of the opinion that this wage revision is going to be written in golden letters in the history of National Federation and in the history of LIC.

 

Few doubts expressed by members regarding special allowance and fixed personal allowance were also cleared by Secretary General. He said that FPA will remain for all those concerned and it will be equivalent to the last quantum of increment.

 

One more stagnation increment after two years of getting the fourth stagnation increment will be the first step to our goal of stagnation increment every two years after reaching the maximum scale.

 

On the issue of increase in annual pay pack and the subsequent increase in cost, it was amply clarified that a good wage revision is always packaged with increased responsibility in the shape of increased cost.

 

Though the wage arrears are cost free our increased salary from April 2021 is going to be costed and increases our responsibility. By now all the Employees have received their April Salary with the new increased wage revision scales. We have seen the real increase in the salaries and now we can say undoubtedly that this is the best ever wage revision. As per our estimates the increase ranges between 25% to 32%. The increase of this magnitude in the wages directly increases our cost ratio, proportionately to the rise in wages. To maintain the same cost ratio every D.O has to increase his performance by the same percentage of increase in the wages. With the huge jump in the wages our cost also increased tremendously creating pressure on every Development Officer irrespective of their performance.

 

 

Increase of wages is beneficial, seeing the long-term interest of the employees, including D.O’s. But for D.O’s it creates additional burden of cost. Our immediate concern should be to increase our performance levels in commensurate with the increased wages.

 

With the increased salary and future situations Recruitment is the one and only solution.

 

On this happy occasion of a historic wage revision, we contemplate and seek a response from the members by recruiting more agents which will help us to combat the increased cost. Expansion and addition of new blood to the agency force of each and every individual Development Officer and in LIC as an institution is need of the hour so that we will have competitive edge over others. More over the basic responsibility of a Development Officer is to first recruit agents and then to train and nurture them to procure business for the corporation. Undeniably the primary job of Development Officers is to recruit agents which is the main channel of New Business.

 

We have been repeatedly requesting our members for recruitment of agents for the last three years, to further strengthen the hands of NFIFWI for clinching various benefits. Management also repeatedly cautioned us on recruitment and giving us the statistics of D.O's who are not recruiting Agents.

 

We have been reminding our members that the Development Officers channel was the main and dominant channel all these years, contributing huge and sizeable business share in the corporation’s total business. We have to ensure that our business share should not decline paving way for other alternate channels to cut our share. For continuation of our channel’s major share, we have requested our members to recruit more number of agents for wide penetration in the all segments of the expanding market for procuring our Life Insurance Business. We should not give even a little scope for other channels to overtake us even on one count. We should take the advantage of various schemes like CCA’s and RCA’s to increase the number of stipendiary agents for starting their career in LIC.

 

Inspite of our repeated request to all the D.O’s to concentrate more on recruitment of Agents, the situation did not improve. LIC for the first time in 2020-2021 had a net addition of agents with major contribution from PDO's and CLIA's and crossed more than 13 lakh agency force.

 

Unfortunately, the net addition of agents is more from CLIA agents and the percentage of business brought by CLIAs is increasing faster than our channel. It is an alarming situation.

 

We must keep in mind that our class has been designed exclusively to build a strong and unparallel channel of new business. To set a parameter of minimum job done, the special rule was framed. The disincentive part of the rule is simply the depiction of penalty for non-fulfillment of the given responsibility in terms of Scheduled first Year Premium Income (SFYPI). Evidently, more agents mean more premium and lesser number of agents means poor quantum of premium. With a slight better number of agents in the team we never require to go and beg before the management for their mercy to minimise penalty or even to save our job. And that can make our foothold stronger to bargain with the management on other issues.  In this regard we call upon comrades through zonal secretaries, through concerned division secretaries to start focusing on recruitment of agents and take a pledge to appoint Agents by May end.

Our slogan this year is – Every Development Officer – Recruitment of minimum 10 Agents. All D.O’s who are having less than 50 Agents should ensure to reach the mark of 50 Agents. Special drive should be made for Reinstatements and Reappointments. The recruitment solves many of our problems and also strengthens the hands of NFIFWI, in our strategic fight against many of the injustices inflicted on our cadre and also achieve issues which will help the cadre to fight against the onslaught in the future changing market conditions.

 

We are working on few aspects wherein we are trying to expand the operational basket of the Development Officer which will create new avenues of business opportunities.

 

On the Issue of levy on wage arrears, we have decided to keep the issue of levy in abeyance till next NEC and till then we request comrades to enjoy the arrears and the increase in pay pack.

Covid is on the rise comrades and it is showing its ugly face in the second phase, many of our comrades, their family members are infected and in some cases the worst is happening. Even the admin staff and agents are getting affected. Public health care and Pvt hospital facilities are grossly inadequate and patients are running from pillar to post to get an admission. In this situation we advise to form local committees to help the needy members. Every precaution has to be taken to keep oneself safe.

 

Keeping in view the prevailing covid conditions in your local area and across the country we request our Development Officers to adapt technology, explore new ways for recruitment of agents, for training of agents and start motivating and training your agents to use Ananda the paperless way of doing life insurance sales.

 

Let us keep in mind all the aspects, like increase in pay pack, subsequent increase in cost, rise in covid cases, collapse of health care system and most importantly our health and the health of our near and dear. Keeping all these aspects in mind let us take cautious steps to fulfil our official obligations.

 

We emphasise, put your best and leave the rest to National Federation of Insurance Field Workers of India.

 

With best regards,

 

 

Comradely yours,

(Vivek Singh)

Secretary General