Former Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac said here on Thursday that the move to privatise the Life Insurance Corporation ( LIC) would cost its customers and the country dear.
Delivering the sixth Gulati memorial lecture, organised by Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation ( GIFT), on ‘Liberalisation and Privatisation in the Financial sector: Case of Life Insurance Corporation of India,’ he said 95% of the surplus created by the company was given back to the policyholders as bonus and other incentives, three times the amount distributed by its rivals in the private sector.
“A private sector corporate is keen on the interest of its shareholders and distributes a major chunk of its profit as dividend while the LIC ploughs back its profit to policyholders and for nation-building. Hence, when the company is forced to act as a corporate entity the ultimate loser would be its customers and the country.”
