Fishcopfed organized a workshop on “Social Security of Fishermen” in which the entire board of directors as well as the top officials of Oriental Insurance participated. The workshop held at the headquarters in N Delhi on Wednesday, proved useful as cooperators could voice the issues related to insurance of the fisherman from their respective areas.
Oriental Insurance started insuring fishermen on the initiative of Fishcopfed way back in 2003. Today about 46 lakh fishermen are covered by the scheme. The claim amount for accidental cover has been raised to 2 lakh last year with the addition of medical cover of Rs 10 thousand, informed B K Mishra, Managing Director of Fishcopfed.
But several issues such as non- settlement of claims, delayed settlement, cases of missing persons, issues of cancelled
checques not available with the poor fishermen and others were raised by the cooperators.
Indulging in self-praise DGM Gurmeet Grover of Oriental said in the last four years, out of 1890 claims we were able to solve 1707- about 95 per cent. But MD B K Mishra who was not satisfied and wanted more insisted on a representative of the insurance company being deputed at Fishcopfed headquarters to track the pending cases.
Another issue that bogs Fishcopfed is that of corporate commission. The Ministry has introduced tendering last year and Oriental bagged the award by being LI. There is no provision of corporate commission in the terms of the tender and we are helpless in the matter, said Insurance representative.
Fishcopfed MD B K Mishra insisted that since we offer you a huge database and we are the ones to fall into legal wrangles should anything go wrong, Fishcopfed must get its cut to meet its expenses. He assured the assembled gathering that Ministry is considering sympathetically Fischcopfed’s request to change the provision of the tender accordingly.
Fishcopfed Chairman Prakash Lonare, among other things complained “we used to meet twice a year in Mumbai discussing issues in the past but the practice has been dispensed with; it is not good.”
Mishra said that the terms of the tender are clear and the Oriental will have to settle claims within 15 days. Supporting Jandhan Yojana Mishra insisted that in future settlement money should be transferred to fishermen’s account directly.
