A Need For An Intensive Awareness Campaign On Indian Pension Scheme

Dubai, 10th March 2014: The pension and life insurance scheme that is launched by the government is focussing on Indian blue collar workers now. For the same, there is a need for an intensive awareness campaign to get them enrol in this scheme.

The senior manager, Sanjay Joshi, zonal marketing department, Bank of Baroda, has informed that only three applicants come forward from Fujairah after our visits to the labour accommodations to Fujairah and Dubai. There is no applicant from the labour accommodations in Sonapur.

Launched in April 2012 by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs for 5 million overseas Indian workers holding Emigration Clearance Required (ECR) category passports, this scheme is known as Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojana and Bank of Baroda is responsible for facilitating it. With an objective of encouraging overseas Indian workers to save for their return and resettlement, this scheme also focuses on encouraging them to obtain a life insurance cover against natural death with a contribution from the government during the period of coverage.

The blue collar workers need to be informed about the benefits of saving and the pension that they will get at the end of their plan. This will require multiple visits to the labour accommodations.

Joshi is planning to take the entire marketing team of the bank along with him in the future to the labour accommodations. He said that they will contact the human resource managers of various companies and through them the labour accommodations will be identified. They will visit them in the evenings between 6.30pm and 7 pm for two hours and convince them for the benefits which they can reap by enrolling in the scheme. Brochures of the same will also be distributed among them to make them aware.

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Even after such instances when workers simply walk off without paying any attention to what the team is saying, the bank holds patience and tries to get them back to at least listen once. Unwanted comments like 'Let's go, all this is not good for us' shows the herd mentality in motion. The psyche of these blue collar workers that reveals doubts about whether they will receive the money or not, needs to be changed. There is a large chunk of workers who don't trust on this that they will be able to resettle themselves with the pension money if they go back to India. This thinking needs to be changed and it will change with time as the pension plan is launched by government of India for the benefit of these workers.