Postal insurance cover to all villages adopted by MPs

New Delhi: In a major move aimed at securing the lives of people belonging to weaker sections of the society, the government, which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is mulling to provide Postal Life Insurance (PLI) cover to people of villages adopted under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana by members of the parliament of both the Houses.

According to a senior official, the Department of Post, an arm of Ministry of Telecommunication, would act as the facilitating agency in expediting the better implementation of the programme.

The official further said that the MPs would be tasked to encourage villagers to enrol with PLI cover by organising awareness camps in coordination with the Postal Department. "As per the plan, one member of a household in every village would be covered under postal life insurance, so that in case of any unfortunate incident the family would

not suffer much at financial front."

"It's not that family members would be restricted to get only one PLI shield rather if they can afford to pay the premiums of more than one insurance cover, they may get multiple policies. The government would make sure that at least one person per household in every adopted village would have a PLI policy," the official said, adding that officials of the postal department would also review the status of policies on yearly basis.

Earlier, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha on Tuesday launched the DARPAN-PLI App aimed at helping in the collection of the premium for PLI and RPLI policies at branch post offices anywhere in India. The app, which was taken forward by former Member (PLI), Postal Services Board, Vasumitra, would also help in online updation of policies.

Hailing the initiative, Sinha said, "The App would help in fulfilling the financial inclusion target of the department by connecting all 1.29 lakh rural branch post offices in the country. The App would enable them to do online postal and financial transactions." "The handheld devices with SIM connectivity, solar power backup are

being installed in all branch post offices. Presently, the services have been rolled out in 61,941 branch post offices under Darpan project," the minister said.