Mumbai:The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) South Zone has raked in Rs.6,025 crore premium income till January 2004, this fiscal. LIC's South Zone comprises of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Union Territory of Pondicherry.

Disclosing this R R Nair, zonal manager says: "Out of the total revenue the share of premium income is Rs.5,840 crore as compared to Rs. 4,438 crore earned last fiscal." LIC has sold 20.71 lakh policies in south zone till January this year as against 19.04 lakh policies sold in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

According to him the premium from bancassurance deals with different banks is around Rs.3.4 crore. "We expect the premium from the banking channels to be around 25 per cent of our total premium next year," Nair adds.

Speaking about the corporation's new product Jeevan Saral, Nair hopes to mobilise around Rs.50 crore premium before March 2004.

LIC has developed a web portal for online training of agents, the first of its kind in the country. The company is also assisting the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IITM) in imparting insurance education to the latter's MBA students.