Insurance Bill unlikely to come in current session

With the deadlock between government and opposition continuing, the controversial Insurance Bill is unlikely to come in the current session of Parliament and sending it to Select Committee could be a fait accompli.
The first major economic reform initiative of the Narendra Modi government, which proposes to hike FDI in insurance to 49 per cent, has been caught in a logjam over Congress-led opposition's insistence to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.
Government sources said there was no forward movement on the Bill and one Minister remarked that there was "no assurance on insurance".
He said that the fact remains that the government does not have a majority in Rajya Sabha and hence the "ball is in the Congress's court".

The Minister said the government is not listing the Insurnace Bill strategically as it is still in consultations with parties for support, but declined to divulge the details.
He also said that the government is amenable to amendments in the Bill.

Amid talk of possibility of government introducing an Ordinance on it, he said he was "not personally in favour of it".
The negotiations between the government and the Opposition over the issue appears to have reached a dead end and the government today said the Congress was "stonewalling" the key reform measure to deny credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi before he goes to the US.

Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman also said the government felt let down by the Congress stonewalling its own proposal to hike FDI in insurance to 49 per cent from current 26 per cent.
"Of course, there are whispers that it could be because they do not want to give credit to Modi before he goes to the US. I have reasons to suspect that is true. So, I can't see otherwise any substantial reason for them to say we oppose," she told PTI.
Sitharaman, however, hoped the Bill will be passed in the current session of Parliament which ends on August 14, saying the opposition to the Bill was crumbling and many parties like NCP are willing to support the Bill.

Congress, which had supported a hike in FDI cap when it was in power, now wants the Bill to be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee for threadbare examination of the issue since the government has brought some amendments.
NCP leader D P Tripathi said that the government should not stand on prestige if the deadlock is not resolved and should unanimously send the Bill to the Select Committee.