| The newly appointed chairman, R N Bhardwaj, has called the eight unions and associations on December 10 and 11 to discuss wage revision of the 1.15 lakh employees, pending a decision since August 2002. |
| The negotiations at LIC had been delayed as the government wanted to settle the wage revision of the 7,57,000 lakh bank employees, which got over on November 23. Since LIC was headless following the retirement of S B Mathur, the wage negotiations could not take place till off late. |
| LIC unions are demanding a hike in the wage bill by 20 per cent, though the management is expected to offer a rise of about 13.25 per cent. "We are more profitable than public sector banks, and ought to get a higher rise in wages," said a senior union leader. |
| According to senior executives, LIC employees can expect about one percentage more than what the banking sector received. Last time round the wage hike of LIC employees stood at 11.5 per cent. |
| LIC's total wage bill amounts to Rs 3,464 crore, of which Rs 2,800 crore is the actual wages paid to employees and Rs 600-odd crore comes in the form of incentives to marketing officers. |
| With LIC business growing at the rate of over 60 per cent, the wage bill as a percentage of total premium income has fallen from 6.07 per cent in 2002-03 to 5.49 per cent last year. LIC has an asset base in excess of Rs 3,40,000 crore, handling over 16 crore policyholders. |
| The union government had asked LIC to delay the wage negotiations till that of the public sector banks was cleared. The idea being that should LIC employees get a higher rise in the wage bill, bank unions would equally demand more. |
| The banking system has received a 13.25 per cent increase on the wage bill till 2007, the increase being with retrospective effect from November 2002. |
| The increase means an incremental annual outgo of Rs 2,200 crore, making the total wage bill rising to Rs 19,000 crore. |
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