Pension reforms in limbo

The fate of the Pension Funds Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill remains uncertain notwithstanding the government's assertion that it is going ahead with pension reforms.

There is no change in the stance of the Left parties whose continuing opposition to this Bill threatens to stonewall the government's move. "We are not aware when the government is bringing it. We have not been consulted," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told Business Standard.

That was why the issue did not figure at all in discussions at the three-day meeting of the party's Politburo and the central committee, which concluded here last Saturday.

CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu also said that there was no change in the party's stance and if the government went ahead with the PFRDA, the CPI(M) will oppose it in Parliament. The Left parties are chiefly opposed to a proposal to invest the funds in equity market and to privatise the fund.

The BJP, which had originally conceived the Bill and which was expected to bat for it in Parliament, has not been consulted by the government either, as the party's deputy leader in Lok Sabha VK Malhotra conceded on Tuesday.

According to CPI(M) sources, the government was earlier banking on the support of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya once the Assembly elections were over. As West Bengal government was in favour of it, the UPA government has pinned all hopes on the "reformist CM" to bring his party colleagues around.

Sources, however, said that Bhattacharya had "verbally communicated" to the UPA government that it should initiate talks with the employees over "defined contribution", as envisaged in the Bill.

This will bring the trade unions into the picture and going by their track record, there is little hope for the PFRDA Bill.

Sources said that the BJP may have been the original architect of this Bill, but the principal opposition party is reluctant to support the government on a money Bill. It is apparently a tightrope walk for the UPA government.