Parliament’s Standing Committee reschedules decision on FDI limit in Insurance sector

30 Jun 2011 Evaluate

The government’s proposal to increase the limit of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in insurance sector from existing 26 to 49% is not likely to happen as the parliament’s standing committee on finance, headed by Yashwant Sinha  has delayed the decision on adopting a vital report on amending India’s insurance norms. The parliamentary panel had scheduled a meeting tomorrow to adopt its report on the Bill, among other things.    

The Insurance Act amendment bill was one of the eight items listed in the 2011-12 budget speech, where Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had promised that the issue would be solved before the budgetary year was out. However, the draft report of the panel has questioned the rationale for increasing the FDI cap in insurance from 26 to 49%.

The parliament’s standing committee on finance has made draft report of 250 pages which conclusively and effectively rejects the proposal for increasing the FDI limits in the Insurance sector. The standing committee’s draft report has said the government has failed to successfully tap domestic finance to cater to the insurance sector. The government is not sure, the draft added, how much investment the insurance sector needs as two different figures on requirement of the sector were being quoted by two top officials.

However, in the support of the finance ministry’s proposal of hiking the FDI limits, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, 'We want to increase FDI in insurance to 49% and hope we can persuade opposition to pass the bill. The industry needs that capital as domestic industrialists don't have that large capital base.'   

The standing committee’s report could be a major stumbling block for FDI in insurance sector, as the committee is not likely to accept the proposal. It is expected that the parliament’s standing committee would not support the proposal of increasing the FDI limits in the insurance sector, therefore FDI in insurance sector is not likely to happen in near future.

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