"The Aam Adami Bima Yojana for the rural households was launched on October 2, 2007 and the target is to cover one crore poor families by October 2 next year", Finance Minister P Chidambaram told a meeting of the consultative committee attached to his ministry on Wednesday.

Under the scheme, all rural landless households will be provided life and disability insurance cover. On death due to accident and permanent disability due to accident, the family would get Rs 75,000. In case of partial disability due to accident, the insurance cover would be Rs 37,500.

The premium to be charged under the scheme is Rs 200 per annum per member, of which 50 per cent will be contributed by the central government and remaining by state governments.

The Finance Minister has already committed Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) for this scheme in the budget. Chidambaram informed the meeting that 13 states have agreed to implement the scheme which is free to the beneficiaries.

He added that the government had announced a health insurance scheme on October 1, 2007 to cover unorganised sector workers belonging to below poverty line categories and their family members over a period of 5 years, beginning April 1, 2008.

On the growth of the sector, Chidambaram said insurance penetration, which is a reflection of gross premium as a percentage of the GDP, in the last 6 years has more than doubled to 4.8 from 2.3 in 2000.

Insurance density, which measures the gross premium per capita in USD, during the same period has gone up from 9.90 in the year 2000 to 38.40 in the year 2006, he said.

These figures, though, are comparatively less than those of some of the developed countries, he said, adding that in the years to come, there will be further improvement in the insurance penetration and density.

Expansion of the sector has also led to increase in employment, he said, adding that in the last seven years, number of insurance agents has gone up to 20 lakh, corporate agents to 5,000 and brokers to 258.

Responding to a question on increasing the scope of National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS), Chidambaram said the Planning Commission and Ministry of Agriculture are examining the new agricultural insurance scheme which will revise the present NAIS.

In addition to NAIS, pursuant to budget announcement, a weather-based crop insurance scheme has been launched on pilot basis, he said.

NAIS, launched in 1999-2000, covers all farmers who take loans from commercial banks, cooperative banks as well from rural banks. The scheme operates on the basis of area approach.

Many innovative products like Varsha Bima, Coffee Insurance, Mango Insurance etc are being developed and implemented in the agriculture sector, he added.

Lauding LIC's [Get Quote] role, he said, the Corporation is doing a remarkable job and the government is encouraging it to go global.