Insurers meet Parliament select panel

It was the second meeting of the panel. It would meet again on Sept 19 and 26 to expedite firming up report

Moving expeditiously on the controversial Insurance Bill, the Parliament’s select committee on Friday heard views of LIC and other public sector insurers, and decided to meet every Friday to fast-track the scrutiny report.

“Secretaries in the different departments of the government and representatives of insurance companies made representations before the committee,” sources said.

They further said the views of different parties on the key economic Bill would be known only during the discussion after stakeholder consultations.

It was the second meeting of the panel. It would meet again on September 19 and 26 to expedite firming up report.

After first meeting of the panel earlier this month, committee chairman Chandan Mitra had said: "We will try to submit our report on the Insurance Bill by the third week of November".

The 15-member panel headed by the senior BJP leader also recorded "oral evidence" of representatives of General Insurance Council, a body set up by insurance regulator IRDA.

Besides, top officials of ministries of Corporate Affairs, Finance, Law and Justice Ministry and Commerce presented their views on the bill.

The bill, which proposes to hike the FDI limit in the insurance sector to 49 per cent, has been caught in a logjam with the Congress-led opposition insisting that it be referred to a select committee.

Bowing to opposition pressure, the government had agreed to refer the controversial bill to the committee.

The committee members would also be visiting Mumbai and Chennai to meet stakeholders to understand and record their views on the Bill.

The members of the committee are Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Jagat Prakash Nadda (all BJP), Anand Sharma, B K Hariprasad and JD Seelam (all Cong), Satish Chandra Misra (BSP), K C Tyagi (JD-U), Derek O'Brien (TMC), V Maitreyan (AIADMK), Naresh Gujral (SAD), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Kalpataru Das (BJD), P Rajiv (CPI-M) and Rajiv Chandrasekhar (Ind).

The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill 2008 seeks to amend the Insurance Act, 1938, the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, 1972 and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999.