Tarigami welcomes scraping of insurance contract with Reliance group
Srinagar: CPI(M) MLA M Y Tarigami Friday welcomed the Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik’s decision to scrap the contract for group mediclaim health insurance awarded to Reliance General Insurance and called for action against those involved in the deal.
“The Governor’s decision to scrap J&K employees’ health insurance contract with the Reliance General Insurance Company vindicates our stand that the scheme had been rolled out to benefit a particular company. We welcome that the Governor has taken a timely decision to scrap the deal,” Tarigami said in a statement here.
However, the Kulgam MLA said more needs to be done by punishing those involved in this “dubious” deal.
“Heads must roll and people should come to know who were the actors behind this scam. The money involved in the scheme was too big to have been a straight forward mistake. The contract had been allotted to the same company which is involved in a controversy over Rs 59000-crore Rafale deal related to procurement of fighter jets by India,” he added.
Tarigami said the government also needs to clarify how the employees would be refunded the amount that was deducted from their salaries as first installment for the mediclaim scheme.
“The government must follow all the codal formalities as and when it decides to roll out any such scheme in future. It is totally unjustified and a big burden on employees and people of the state to give contracts worth billions to corporate companies without following the set norms. An open bid to select the insurance company on lowest premium must be selected,” he said.
The communist leader said the government must also keep in consideration that keeping an equal premium for class IV employees and gazzetted officers and above in the scheme is unjustified and unacceptable.
“The premium must be charged proportionate to the salary of the employees”.
The governor’s decision comes after the mandatory Reliance insurance for the state government employees and pensioners had sparked a row.
“The employees wanted it to be cancelled because there was some bungling in it. I saw the file and when I reached the conclusion that something is wrong in it, it did not take me a minute to cancel it,” Malik told reporters on the sidelines of a function here Thursday.
The governor refused to name anyone involved in the alleged malpractice but said “those involved will be punished”.
The Jammu and Kashmir government had on September 20 rolled out the group mediclaim health insurance policy for its employees, pensioners and accredited journalists of the state.
It had tied up with Reliance General Insurance for the mediclaim policy, which was made mandatory for the employees and pensioners. (PTI)
Press Trust of India
