RS panel to meet on controversial Insurance Bill on September 4

NEW DELHI: The first meeting of the Select Committee of Rajya Sabha on the controversial Insurance Bill will be held on September 4.

Senior BJP MP Chandan Mitra is the Chairman of the 15-member Committee which has been asked to give its report by the end of the first week of the Winter session of Parliament.

Bowing to opposition pressure, government had agreed to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.

The government agreed to the demand amidst receding hopes of being able to convince the Opposition to support its first major economic reform initiative.

Major opposition parties had joined hands on the issue and demanded that the Insurance Bill be sent to a Select Committee.

The bill, which proposes to hike the FDI limit in 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.

On August 14, Rajya Sabha had adopted a resolution to refer the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2008 to a Select Committee.

Other members include Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Jagat Prakash Nadda (both BJP), Anand Sharma, B K Hariprasad and Jesudasu Seelam (all Cong), Satish Chandra Misra (BSP), K C Tyagi (JD-U), Derek O' Brien (TMC), V Maitreyan ( AIADMK), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), P Rajeeve (CPI-M), Kalpataru Das (BJD), Naresh Gujral (SAD) and Rajeev Chandrasekhar (IND).