J&K says didn’t favour Reliance

The Jammu and Kashmir’s government’s picking up Reliance General Insurance Company Limited (RGICL) for mandatory ‘Group Mediclaim Insurance Policy’ for all its employees, pensioners and accredited journalists has raised many eyebrows in the state and beyond. The Congress party is in the forefront of censuring the move and has termed it as yet another testimony of ‘Modi-Reliance nexus’.

However, a spokesman of the State government rejected the criticism as unwarranted and said that all public sector undertakings as well as top private insurance companies were contacted to participate in the bidding process.

He added, “In the second round of bidding, nine private and PSUs submitted their bids out of which five qualified on technical evaluation criteria. The financial bid of these qualified companies were opened and it emerged that the RGICL with a quoted premium of `8776.84 was at L1”.

He said the National Insurance Company Ltd with quoted premium of `11918.00 was at L2, ICICI Lombard with quoted premium of `17691.74 at L3, Bajaj Allianz with quoted premium of `23476.10 at L4 and United India Assurance Company with quoted premium of `27225.00 at L5”.

However, the opposition has sought to link the choice of the state which is currently under governor’s rule with ongoing Rafale controversy wherein the Modi government has been accused of favouring Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence Limited over Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

On September 20, the governor’s administration formally rolled out the Group Mediclaim Health Insurance Scheme for employees, pensioners and accredited journalists in the State. The scheme is mandatory for government employees.