Insurance Bill in last leg; likely get parliament nod

It looks like it won't be difficult for the government to get the parliament's nod for The Insurance Amendments Bill with Congress now on board.The government has proposed to hike foreign direct investment from 26 percent to 49 percent in the insurance sector.With the Select Committee adopting the draft report, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed the hope that the insurance market expansion would expand once the Bill is passed by Parliament.The Select Committee is set to submit its report on the bill tomorrow. The panel's head Chandan Mitra said that so far, apart from the CPM, no other political party has submitted a dissent note.He said: “Anybody who does not give note of dissent means that party is onboard; nobody from the Congress has indicated that they are giving a note of dissent. To the best of my information, so far only CPIM has tabled a dissent note. I will be tabling the report in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow,”In response to the above statement, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, MP, Congress (Rajya Sabha) said: “We are not giving any blank cheque to anybody, but in the event our basic principles are met and they include caps and safeguards, they include definitions of control. So, let us see the nitty-gritty, both god and devil lie in the details and subject to that it is our baby, our idea but I repeat subject to that caveat.”The Select Committee was set up in August by the Rajya Sabha to scrutinise the Insurance Laws. The 15-member panel was asked to submit its final report by December 12 to Rajya Sabha.(With inputs from CNN-IBN/PTI)