Srinagar: The governor’s administration has cancelled Group Mediclaim Health Insurance Scheme for employees, pensioners and accredited journalists.
The announcement was made by the governor Satya Pal Malik in a TV interview, aired on Wednesday night.
Asked why the contract was given to Anil Ambani’s company, Malik declared that he is cancelling it.
The Governor’s administration, through an order No 406-FD dated September 20, 2018, choose Reliance General Insurance as the company for implementing the insurance policy with a coverage of Rs 6 lakh for individual and family members on floater basis.
The scheme was made mandatory for all state government employees including employees of PSUs, autonomous bodies and universities. It will be optional for pensioners and other categories of employees
On October 6, Congress President Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the scheme for favouring Reliance company.
In fact, the government on the same day came up with a statement and “dispelled” what it “rhetorical misgivings” being created about the Group Medical Health Insurance Scheme rolled out by it.
“The State Government made it clear that the scheme has been implemented after following all the required procedures in a fair and most transparent manner,” read a statement issued by the state’s information department.
“The entire bidding process has been done in a competitive, clean and transparent manner in line with the Financial Rules and Regulations as well as CVC (Chief Vigilance Commissioner) guidelines,” said the statement.
It said that the bidding process was monitored by a team of senior-most officers, well versed with the Financial Rules and Regulations, and was conducted through strict technical and financial evaluation. “In the first round of bidding only one bid was submitted by a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) and as the first round concluded with poor response it had to be terminated,” it said and added that thereafter, a pre-bid conference was organized, where both private and PSU companies participated and the tender was reissued with minor changes in technical parameters on their suggestion.
The statement said that all PSUs as well as top private insurance companies were contacted to participate in the bidding process as a result of which in the second round, 9 companies including Private and Public Sector Undertakings submitted their bids, out of which 5 qualified on technical evaluation criteria. The financial bid of 5 qualified companies were opened and it emerged that Reliance General Insurance Company with a quoted premium of Rs 8776.84 was at L1, National Insurance Company Ltd with quoted premium of Rs 11918.00 at L2, ICICI Lombard with quoted premium of Rs 17691.74 at L3, Bajaj Allianz with quoted premium of Rs 23476.10 at L4 and United India Assurance Company with quoted premium of Rs 27225.00 at L5, it said.
