My Role in introducing Rural Postal Life Insurance in India

 My Role in introducing Rural Postal Life Insurance in India

Great and thought-provoking cartoon. I experienced this situation when I was Director Postal Life Insurance at Postal Directorate, New Delhi in 1993-95. I read in a magazine, Business India, about the Malhotra Committee of Reforms in the Insurance Sector. Contacted them and apprised them that the Department of Posts is the second largest player in the insurance field. However, it has been restricted in its activities within the government and PSU sector. They asked me to prepare a paper on it which I did in a day and submitted to higher authorities. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi happened to be the Member in charge. He appreciated it and asked me to send to the Committee. Later he asked me to put it up for the perusal of the then Secretary, S K Parthasarathy. He resented and wrote on the file that in oral evidence, no such matters needed to be discussed. I asked for guidance from Faruqi Sahab who smiled and said go ahead and don't worry. 

I attended the Committee deliberations twice for oral evidence, once along with my immediate boss, B K Mohanty DDG (PLI) and second time alone since he was on tour. On the second occasion, Mr Malhotra literally noted down all the points I made along with the roadmap I had put forward. He reproduced it in para 7 of the Committee report and the said report was out within a fortnight. 

When I heard the announcement in the evening on Doordarshan, I was afraid of what the Secretary might say. The next morning I reached earlier than my usual time and lo, got a call from PS to the Secretary to come down and meet him. With my legs shaking I rushed down the stairs instead of waiting for the lift. As I was ushered in, the Secretary got up from his seat, greeted and congratulated me. He had received a copy of the said report from the Secretary Telecom, who had congratulated him. I was totally surprised.

Anyway, I had worked day and night to get the scheme of RURAL POSTAL LIFE INSURANCE approved, first from the Malhotra Committee of Insurance, then from the Actuary and later from Government authorities. After some time I learnt that the PM wanted to launch the scheme himself on a particular occasion to encash it being a great and popular step and thus we had to wait. Incidentally, the scheme opened a 50,000 crore market (sum assured) for our department. 

Meanwhile, my boss, B K Mohanaty had announced through all Heads of the Circle that he was coming up with a great scheme in Rural PLI. A very cunning and scheming Officer, he wanted to take credit for this achievement himself and in the meantime got me transferred from PLI Directorate to Postal Staff College, Ghaziabad. We had kept the cyclostyled orders ready for issue which bore my signatures waiting for orders from PMO any moment. But that was not to be. It was thus left to my successor to sign the orders. All that was the contribution of my boss, who did not know even the ABC of insurance, was to talk to everyone who mattered in the department to inform them about the scheme and to remove my signatures as if I didn't exist in the scheme of things. Worse still was that Mr Mohanty, gave adverse remarks on my annual confidential report that year. I was, however, saved by the appreciation letter received earlier from Mr S C Mahalik, the then Secretary of the Department and the review of my ACR by the Counter-signing authority, the then Member, P K Bagchi. However, I must confess that such adverse remarks had no effect on me as I had got used to receiving them in the past and continued to receive them in the future as well. I am still not able to comprehend how I managed to rise to the level of Member Postal Services Board (Additional Secretary, Govt of India) before I finally retired in 2010. 

I firmly believe that BUREAUCRACY HAS ITS FUNNY SIDE TOO.