Govt: Won’t let Oppn scuttle insurance sector reforms

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 20

A day after introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill in Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made clear that the Government will not countenance attempts to delay or obstruct reforms to open up the insurance sector to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) even as “political obstructionists are out to ensure that the issue does not come to the debating table of Parliament.”

Addressing captains of trade and industry while inaugurating FICCI’s 87th annual general meeting here today, Jaitley said overseas investors had waited and watched for over a decade and were confounded by the fact that a country committed to reform had not been able to reform the insurance sector. “That is the challenge,” he said and questioned, “Can we allow this to continue?”

Jaitley likened the current politico-economic situation to a paradox where a global slowdown is creating a natural flow of foreign investors to India and yet there are large areas of the economy that are crying out for reform. “Today the choice is clear. You either reform or miss the bus once again, and if the latter were to happen, a whole generation will not pardon us,” he said and added emphatically that the new government was clear that the course it had adopted was unalterable”.

Responding to FICCI president Sidharth Birla’s observation that tangible outcomes of the government’s reform efforts were likely to accrue over 6-24 months and therefore patience is logical, The Finance Minister stated that “There is a reason for all of us to get impatient. That would give a message to the obstructionists” to relent.

Referring to the GST reform Bill introduced in Parliament, Jaitley said an overwhelming majority of the states were enthusiastic on the reform as their fears about revenue loss in the initial years after the GST roll-out would be set at rest through a compensatory mechanism in the transition period.