| Business Line, Thursday, Jun 19, 2003 |
| AMP Sanmar to help in rural job generation |
Our Bureau
HYDERABAD, June 18 |
| AMP Sanmar Assurance Company Ltd, the life insurance joint venture of the Chennai-based Sanmar group with AMP of Australia, has entered into a strategic alliance with the State Government for helping it in its efforts to generate rural employment by providing insurance training to the rural educated unemployed and recruit them as rural insurance agents. |
| The Director of Youth Services, Andhra Pradesh, Mr G. Kamal Vardhan Rao, and the AMP Sanmar Head, Retail Distribution, Mr S. Balachander, signed a memorandum of understanding to this effect here on Wednesday. |
| According to Mr Rao, the Government has initiated a novel plan to generate rural employment in the State in association with life insurance companies. Having already trained 500 rural youth in Cuddapah and Chittoor districts in alliance with Life Insurance Corporation of India and around 200 agents in association with SBI Life last year, the Government has now tied-up with AMP Sanmar to train the rural youth in four districts — Karimnagar, Kurnool, Nellore and East Godavari. |
| A committee comprising officials from the AP Government and AMP Sanmar would supervise the implementation of the joint initiative. The State Government would initially select the candidates and offer them to AMP Sanmar, which in turn would make a final selection based on its standards and requirements. The cost of initial selection would be borne by the Government, Mr Rao said. |
| AMP Sanmar on its part would be responsible for the training of the selected candidates as required by the regulations. The Government would offer the infrastructure facilities including the classroom at various centres. AMP Sanmar would arrange the training programme inputs including faculty and course material. |
| According to Mr Balachander, the recruited agents, who are successful in getting the agent's licence issued by the insurance regulator, would receive a stipend of Rs 500 per month from AMP Sanmar for a period of six months subject to minimum productivity norms as applicable. This would be in addition to the commission payable on the policies sold by them, he said. |
| Elaborating on the other efforts of the State Government for employment generation, Mr Rao said army recruitment was found to be the most potential one for such initiatives. While the Government has provided training to over 10,000 rural youth for army recruitment, the Indian Army recruited around 4,000 of them last year. |
| The Government now planned to organise training for at least 15,000 youth during this year. It had been spending around Rs 1,500 per each candidate on army training, he said. |
