New Delhi: Trade and Ministry of Industry are making changes in foreign direct investment policies (FDI) to facilitate the worship of the largest insurance company in the country, after taking views from the Ministry of Finance, said government officials on Thursday.
Anurag Jain, Secretary at the Industrial and Trade Promotion Department (DPIIT), said the current policy related to this sector would not facilitate the process of LIC worship and, therefore, need to be revised.
“We are working on further simplification of FDI’s policy.
Points that are very important for further simplification are needed urgently because we have to make a LIC investment.
So, we will come out with the revised FDI policy that will facilitate LIC investment,” he told reporters here.
This problem is being discussed with the Financial Services Department and the Department of Investment and Management of Public Assets (Depam).
“We have had two rounds of discussions at my level and now, we have (DPIIT, DFS and Details) come on the same page.
So, we are in the process of compiling changes in the FDI policy.
We will go to the Cabinet (for approval ), “he said.
According to the current FDI policy, 74 percent of foreign investments are permitted below the automatic route in the insurance sector.
However, this regulation does not apply to the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which is given through separate LIC actions.
According to the rules of SEBI, both FPI and FDI are permitted in public offers.
However, the source said that since the LIC law has no provisions for foreign investment, there is a need to harmonize the LIC IPO proposed with SEBI norms regarding foreign investor participation.
The cabinet has been in July last year approved the initial public offering (IPO) of LIC and the sale of pegs was planned in the March quarter at this time.
Furthermore, talking about the long-delayed e-commerce policy, the Secretary said the DPIIT was in the final stage of “touching” with e-commerce policies and national retail trade policies.
E-commerce policy “resolved at my level and we have circulated that to another department.
Now we will have a higher level discussion …
we will discuss with the department about it and then we will finish it …
a lot of work has been done” , he said.
He added that FDI was allowed only in the market model and “I don’t see any changes in it”.
When asked about the availability of oxygen because the number of Covid-19 cases increased in this country, he said the government was well prepared and “we can fulfill demand up to 19,000 metric tons”.
At LIC Disinvestment, Jain said that the Cabinet would approve changes in FDI’s policy.
Regarding the FDI limit to be allowed in LIC, it says any percentage of DIPAM and the Financial Services Department will suggest, “We will place it” in the policy.
“We are looking at the draft to facilitate basically to ensure that this is an activity that is permitted because there are currently certain things that need to be changed,” he said.
Talking about reducing the burden of compliance to promote the ease of doing business and ease of life, he said the DPIIT has written to other central countries and ministries about this issue and has asked them to identify compliance that needs to be reduced on January 31 and from it, how much they are (state and ministry) can be carried out on March 31 and on August 15, 2022.
At first, he said the DPIIT would arrange ‘Startup India Innovation Sunday’ for January 10-16; And below that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with the Select start-up on January 15.
In addition, the virtual exhibition will be held, and there will be several pitching sessions to start with the main investors and corporations.
At the creation of employment by start-up, he said 6.5 lakh jobs have been created by 60,000 registered start-ups.
“Now, we intend that in the next four financial years, we will have another 20 lakh work.
That’s what we expected,” Jain said.
In the proposed industrial policy, he said that the preparation ended and “Now, we will present it to a higher level and discuss and see how to move forward”.
Furthermore, he said that in the future, the department will use public procurement to promote the addition of domestic values (PPP-MII Order 2017).