GUWAHATI, Feb 6 - The Asom Songrami Mancha has expressed deep concern over the systematic disruption of the Indian economy by the present Central government.
In a statement, it also criticised the government for privatisation of the profit-making public sector organisations such as LIC and termed it as a ploy to benefit the 23 private sector organisations in the insurance sector.
Reminding the government about the yeoman service that the LIC has been rendering since 1956 and the contribution made by it to the government exchequer, the Mancha said the LIC was providing employment to 1.2 lakh employees and benefiting 11.89 lakh agents as well as serving of 41 crore customers.
�With a revenue of Rs 31 crore, the LIC has been making significant contributions to the Government of India; in FY 2019-20 for instance, it contributed Rs 2,166 crore to the Government of India. It is a mystery as to why the government is keen on privatising such a huge profit-making public sector organisation,� Mancha president Diganta Konwar and working president Adip Kumar Phukan said.
Pointing out that in order to destabilise the LIC, the then Atal Behari Vajpayee government had allowed 23 private sector organisations in the insurance sector, the Mancha said that undue advantage was being provided to the private sector organisations by the BJP to achieve its own resource mobilisation target.
�It goes without saying that no private organisation will invest its resources for the nation building process of the government. The LIC, for instance, has till March 31, 2019, invested Rs 21,40,106 crore in the infrastructure and social welfare initiatives of the Central government. It has invested Rs 18.79 crore for the Central government, Rs 54,000 crore for housing development, Rs 1.08 lakh crore for the power sector, Rs 65,000 crore for road construction and Rs 31,000 crore for telecom.
�No private organisation can ever invest such an amount towards nation building. As such, this initiative towards privatisation of the LIC has been considered as an act of antinational activity by the Asom Songrami Mancha,� it said, adding that it had expressed its full support and solidarity with the employees and stakeholders of the LIC in their protest against its privatisation.