Municipality launches life insurance for Musahars

By Rabindra Upreti,Bardibas, Mar. 20: Bardibas Municipality has launched group life insurance programme for the well-being and safe future of the most vulnerable Musahar community in the municipality. It was started from the model Musahar settlement in Ward No. 14. 

The municipality has provided ‘collective term life insurance’ to 108 Musahars, including 67 women at the rate of Rs. 100,000 per person in the age group of 18 to 69 years. The municipality has paid all the money required for the insurance. 

Inaugurating the model settlement of Musahars on Monday, Prahlad Chhetri, Mayor of the Bardibas Municipality, said that collective life insurance is an epoch-making step. He claimed that Bardibas was the first municipality in the country to provide three-year life insurance that ensures the future of the Musahar community. 

Mayor Chhetri informed that the municipality plans to gradually insure about 700 Musahar families living in all the three wards of the municipality area. “We have implemented collective life insurance with the belief that it will bring an epoch-making change. The insurance will support to ensure economic security of the Musahar community, which is backward and below the extreme poverty line,” Chhetri said. 

It has been ensured that the family of the insured person will get Rs. 100,000 in case of death due to any reason. Bijaya Mahato, Ward Chairperson of Ward No. 14, said that it has taken a three-year group life insurance with Liberty Micro Life Insurance Limited as per the mandate of municipality.   

He said that municipality aims to gradually cover everyone under such facility. “After Ward No. 14, there is a programme to provide life insurance to the Musahar community living in Ward No. 10 and 12,” he said. Nobody in the Musahar settlement is probably unknown about the needs, sub-morbidities and impact of life insurance.    

Expressing happiness over being the first community in the municipality to get life insurance, Viltu Sada, coordinator of the model Musahar settlement, said that it was a great gift for his community. "Earlier, the services provided in the name of Dalits were limited to speeches, but now the insurance provided at the doorstep has increased the trust and confidence in the municipality," he said. 

Manjay Sada, the only graduate youth in the model Musahar settlement, said that insurance would prove to be a gift for the families of the Musahar community. According to him, the death rate in this community is very high. Due to the unbalanced lifestyle, the average age of the Musahar community is limited to 35 to 40 years. 

The children aged  between 10 and 15 years have lost their parents. The orphaned minors are forced to do child labour and live a life of neglect. Some dependents also die due to lack of treatment, malnutrition, disease, hunger and neglect.

"This insurance facility may not reduce the mortality rate of Musahars, but it will provide support, confidence and guidance to the dependents," said Manjay Sada. He pointed out the need for the municipality to ensure effective regulation and monitoring to prevent misuse of such insurance money.