Demanding a rollback of the government's decision to raise the Foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the insurance sector to 74 per cent, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) employees staged a protest in Ludhiana on Thursday.
The employees were also protesting against the proposed IPO of LIC that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during the presentation of Budget 2021.
"There is a strike across the country. We are protesting against the proposal of bringing an IPO of the LIC. It is an attempt to push LIC towards privatisation. We demand the government to drop this idea. We are also against raising the FDI limit in the insurance sector to 74 per cent," Ritu Aban, one of the protesters told ANI.
In February, Sitharaman proposed to amend the Insurance Act 1938 to increase the permissible FDI limit from 49 per cent to 74 per cent in insurance companies and allow foreign ownership and control with safeguards.
During her budget speech, she said: "I propose to amend the Insurance Act 1938 to increase the permissible FDI limit from 49 per cent to 74 per cent in insurance companies and allow foreign ownership and control with safeguards."
(With agency inputs)