Delhi cabinet approves over Rs 40 crore to give insurance to lawyers

New Delhi: The Delhi cabinet has approved over Rs 40 crore to provide medical insurance of Rs 5 lakh and term insurance of Rs 10 lakh to lawyers, who are residents of the national capital, Law minister Kailash Gahlot said Friday. The lawyers will be insured under the Chief Minister Advocates Welfare Scheme, which was announced by the city government in December 2019. The AAP government had set aside a corpus of Rs 50 crore for the welfare of lawyers under the scheme.

"Honble CM @ArvindKejriwal had last year announced CM Adv Welfare Scheme with an allocated budget of Rs 50 Cr. As a final step towards implementation of Scheme, Delhi Cabinet on 29.10.20 has approved expenditure of more than 40.60 Cr for purchase of Life Ins & MediClaim Policies," Gahlot said in a tweet.

The chief minister had in November last year set up a 13 member committee, headed by the Supreme Court Bar Association president Rakesh Kumar Khanna, to recommend ways for utilisation of the fund for welfare of advocates.

The committee had recommended group mediclaim policy of Rs 5 lakh and a life insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh for each lawyer, besides setting up e-libraries and creche facilities in district courts through the fund.

According to the Bar Council of Delhi, 37,135 lawyers are registered voters in Delhi and of these 29,098 are on its rolls and have been verified.