POSTAL LIFE INSURANCE AND RURAL POSTAL LIFE INSURANCE
- Postal Life Insurance (PLI) was introduced in 1884 with the express approval of Secretary of State (for India) to Her Majesty the Queen Empress of India. It was essentially a scheme of State Insurance mooted by the then Director General of post offices F.R. Hogg in 1881 as a welfare scheme for the benefit of Postal employees in 1884 and later extended to the employees of Telegraph Department in 1888.
- In 1890, PLI extended insurance cover to female employees of P&T Department at a time when no other insurance company covered female lives. It is the oldest life insurer in this country
- In the beginning, the upper limit of life insurance was only Rs.4000/ which has now been increased to 20Lakh rupees for all schemes combined — Endowment Assurance and Whole Life Assurance.
- It now covers employees of central and state governments, central and state public sector undertakings, universities, government aided educational institutions, nationalized banks and local bodies etc.
- PLI also extends the facility of insurance to the officers and staff of the defence services and para-military forces.
- Recently, PLI coverage has also been extended to the employees of Scheduled Commercial Banks, Credit Cooperative Societies, Joint Ventures having a minimum 10% stake of Central/State Govts/PSUs/banks, universities/education institutions affiliated to University Grants Commission/Central, Board of Secondary-Education/All India Council of Technical Education/Medical Council of India, etc.
- Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) was introduced as a result of the recommendations of the Official Committee for Reforms in the Insurance Sector (Malhotra Committee). The Committee had observed in 1993 that only 22% of the insurable population in this country had been insured and that life insurance funds accounted for only 10% of gross household savings.
- The Government accepted the recommendations of Malhotra Committee and allowed Postal Life Insurance to extend its coverage to the rural areas to transact life insurance business from 1995.
- Post Office Life Insurance Funds (POLIF) and Rural Post Office Life Insurance Funds (RPOLIF): Till 2008, the POLIF and RPOLIF were being transferred to Government account and Ministry of Finance was giving 8% interest on these funds.
- In 2009, the Government granted approval for investing these funds in market—linked securities and setting up of an Investment Board. The Investment Board has been set up with two fund managers, viz., SBI Fund Management Private Limited and UTI Asset Management Company Ltd and investments as per IRDA norms have started from November, 2009.
- Rafi Ahmed Kidwai National Postal Academy (RAKNPA), Ghaziabad: This academy is the apex training institute of the Department of Posts for meeting the training needs of its higher managerial cadres and is one of the Central Training Institutions recognized by Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT).
- The main objective of the Academy is to impart induction and in-service training to the officers of Indian Postal Service, Postal Service Group ‘B’ and all Accounts stream officers working in the Department.
- Below the Apex level RAKNPA, there are six Postal Training Centres (PTCs) located at Darbhanga, Guwahati, Madurai, Mysore, Saharanpur and Vadodara. The PTCS impart Induction Training to Group ‘C’ Cadres of the Department.