``We all wanted to know the views of the IRA chief, who has been highly critical about the state of affair in the industry,'' the chief of a GIC subsidiary said. Once it gets the statutory power, the authority will play a critical role in the functioning of the GIC subsidiaries.

The IRA has already been vested with the power of the Insurance Regulatory Authority under Clause 34(b) of the Insurance Act of 1938 dealing with supervision and inspection of the institution. Earlier, the regulatory authority power was jointly exercised by CS Rao, joint secretary, finance ministry and the chairman of GIC.

Rangachary took up the issue of chalking out the norms for the country's 60,000 surveyors and a large number of agents of the general insurance industry,abolishing some of the outdated administrative guidelines, tariff structure and the reporting system to be adopted by the subsidiaries for communicating with IRA.

In a bid to impart qualitative and effective service, Rangachary has mooted an elaborate procedure to select surveyors. The surveyors, graduates with some years of critical exprience, will also be provided with adequate training by a central institution which will be set up .

So far the four GIC subsidiaries have been issuing licences for surveyors. The IRA will issue the licences once its becomes a statutory body.A GIC official said there are too many surveyors in the industry and not much assignments are available to them. There have been instances when the industry's overall performance gets affected due to the faulty role played by the surveyors who certify claim payments. The IRA chief has also proposed that the minimum qualifiaction for insurance agents should be HSC. ``The agents should be provided with adeqaute training,'' Rangacharyhad suggested.