So far these documents could be availed of from the insurance companies by only those who buy a particular policy. TAC is the constitutional body which fixes the price for some of the products like fire, marine hull and engineering insurance.

Rangachari chaired his first TAC meet on Tuesday after the centre transferred the chairmanship of the constitutional body to the chairman of the IRA. He has also asked the four insurance subsidiaries to furnish all the relevant updated data of the companies with the IRA.

The meeting was attended by the chiefs of the four subsidiaries and General Insurance Corporation chairman D Sengupta.

The GIC is yet to exercise its power to nominatethe members to the TAC, though the centre has allowed the GIC to nominate 15 members out of 20 to the TAC, under the new chairman.

However, sources said that the centre is taking a second look at the issue as nomination of such large members by the state-owned insurance institutions will help them retain the monopoly over the TAC. The GIC might be permitted to nominate around seven members to the tariff-fixing body, sources said.

The TAC restructuring will take some time as IRA is yet to get its statutory power, sources said. Malhotra Committee had suggested that TAC should be abolished after the IRA is given power to scrutinise and vet the price and products of the general insurance industry.

"This is just a suggestion from the Malhotra panel and may not be implemented immediately even though IRA is given full constitutional power shortly to regulate the activities of the industry,'' sources said.

At present, there are 14 members on the TAC board -- four subsidiary chiefs, four technical directors ofthe four subsidiaries, two managing directors of GIC, director Bureau of Cost and Prices and director of insurance funds of Maharashtra.

Finance panel to visit city FIs

The parliamentary committee on finance -- consisting of 35 members of Parliament -- is paying a four-day visit to a series of Mumbai-based financial bodies from this weekend.

The committee, headed by Murli Deora, includes two former finance ministers -- Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram. It will visit the Reserve Bank of India, Bombay Stock Exchange, National Stock Exchange, Sebi and other prominent financial institutions like Industrial Developmemt Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation, General Insurance Corporation and Unit Trust of India.

Market sources said that the committee's visit particularly assumes importance as the economy is on the thresholds of depression, with falling credit growth, bearish market and low exports.

The state-owned insurance institutions are expected to be quizzed by the committee about theirpreparedness to face the challenges of a liberalised insurance sector since the BJP-led coalition government might enact the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill in the next session of Parliament.