Press release of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)
Trade unions in the banking and insurance sector are staging demonstrations across the country denouncing the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance laws) Bill 2025, passed in both houses of the parliament a few days ago. Unions of workers of other sectors across the country as well as central trade unions are expressing their angry opposition to the new bill, calling it anti-people and anti-national.
AIFAP has organized many online meetings in the past opposing the privatization of the banking and insurance sector. We share below the statement issued by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) on 18th December 2025.
AITUC expresses solidarity with workers’ unions in banks and insurance sector in their protest against 100% FDI in insurance
All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) expresses its uncompromising solidarity with the trade unions in the banks and the insurance sector who are staging protest demonstrations today across the country against the Insurance Amendment Bill increasing the limit of Foreign Direct Investment from 74% to 100% in the insurance sector.
AITUC condemns this bill christened as the Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Bill 2025 passed in both the houses of parliament as anti-national and anti-people. This bill carries ominous portends to the sector with potential negative impact on the economy of the insurance sector. The esserice and spirit of the bill is driven not by the interests of the Indian economy or policy holders, but by the demands of international finance capital and global insurance giants.
The insurance sector is a strategic pillar of national savings, long-term investment, and social security. Allowing 100% foreign ownership is a deliberate abdication of sovereign responsibility, exposing the hard-earned savings of the Indian people to the speculative and profit-driven logic of global capital. This amendment is an economic surrender to the demands of global insurance market. This legislation represents a complete departure from the social and developmental role of insurance, reducing it to a mere market commodity for global profiteering.
AITUC warns that FDI with full profit repatriation results in drain of national wealth. AITUC points out that earlier increases in FDI in the insurance sector have not produced any positive economic results except benefitting the private and foreign insurance companies. This exposes the falsehood and hollowness of the government’s claims. AITUC recalls the international experiences that warn against full ownership of international insurance market that prioritise profit over protection.
The claim that 100% FDI will improve penetration or efficiency is a dangerous myth. What it will actually facilitate is the institutionalised looting of Indian household savings, systematically built over decades through public sector insurance institutions. AITUC castigates the BJP government for capitulating to the pressures of global insurance capital. This is a policy choice driven by the needs of global, particularly the US Insurance giants, trading the national interest.
This bill lays bare the class character of the present policy regime, which consistently privileges corporate and foreign capital over national interest, public institutions, and workers, It is part of a broader neoliberal agenda that seeks to privatise profits, socialise risks, and weaken the organised labour.
AITUC firmly asserts that insurance is not a market commodity but a social necessity, and the state has a duty to safeguard it in the interests of the people. Handing over this sector to foreign capital is economically reckless and politically indefensible.
AITUC demands that the bill be withdrawn forthwith. We also reiterate that given the strategic and social importance of the insurance sector the government amends the existing Insurance Acts so as to protect and strengthen the Public Sector insurance.
AITUC calls upon the entire rank and file of AITUC across the country to support the agitation call of the unions in banks and insurance. We urge upon all the democratic forces, and all patriotic sections of society to unite against this anti-national policy and extend full support to the ongoing struggles of insurance and bank employees,
In solidarity with the protesting workers of Banks and Insurance sector
Amarjeet Kaur
General Secretary-AITUC
Mobile: 9810144958