Journalism of Courage
Parliament today passed the long-awaited Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill (PFRDA) Bill,2011,which aims to create a regulator for the sector and allows at least 26 per cent FDI.
The bill has travelled for nine years. Let us give the bill the honour that it deserves and pass it, said finance minister P Chidambaram while replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha. The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on September 4 and now requires the Presidents assent before it is fully enacted. In the Rajya Sabha,while 115 MPs voted in the favour of the bill while 25 members including those from the Left Parties and TMC voted against it.
While acknowledging concerns of the members,Chidambaram,however,pointed out that the current PFRDA is unsecured despite managing a corpus of Rs 35,000 crore belonging to 52.83 lakh subscribers including those of 26 state governments. Rs 35,000 crore should not be used by unstatutory authority…All this bill does is to make non-statutory authority a statutory authority, he said,adding the authority will have powers to penalise.
The finance minister indicated that the National Pension Scheme could get tax benefits under the Direct Taxes Code. He also said the government had accepted all but one of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the subject. Chidambaram said,There is enough structure in place in NPS that funds will be managed well and safely. The returns are more than government. The returns are more than government bonds. Returns are quite adequate.
