Govt needs to accelerate policy reforms: Sebi

Market regulator Sebi today called for accelerating policy reforms like pension bill to revive investor sentiment and faltering growth.

Calling for an urgent need to revive investor sentiment to revive the faltering growth, Sebi Chairman Upendra Kumar Sinha said, “Some of the reforms have long been pending, and one example being pension reforms.”

“And that is something all of us have to counter very seriously, that how long can we go on deferring this?” Addressing the Skoch summit, Sinha said the country has still time to tide over the present growth deceleration if we move ahead with some of the urgent reform measures and resolve the issues plaguing the implementation side.

“If we start making some progress on these things (reforms), then in spite of the forecast about our economy coming down from the higher levels of 2007-08; we can again come to levels which are commendable in comparison to any part of the world. But those changes have to take place,” he said.

The GDP growth hit a nine-year low in FY12 at 6.5 percent due to a number of reasons, which many cite as policy paralysis and lack clarity on policy.This has led to almost all the foreign banks and analysts such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi and HSBC, among others, to lower FY13 GDP growth to a low of 5.8-6.3 percent.

Admitting that a part of our problems are imported, Sinha, however, said, “We cannot become complacent about policy making and implementation domestically.“Stating that there is no reason why even private parties are not able to implement their projects on time, he said, “I am surprised as to, if an agreement has been signed between a raw material supplier and a utility, why it is not being honoured.”

According to a Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)estimate, projects worth Rs 5 trillion, mostly in the power and steel sectors were stalled in FY12 due to lack of mandatory clearances, fuel, raw material linkages, etc.

Listing out the reform steps, he said, “We all know what happened to FDI in retail, the PFRDA Bill,”

He said that the largest pension funds in the country managed under a Central law will not be reformed by PFRDA bill

The government on Thursday deferred the Pension Bill, that seeks to open up the sector to foreign and private investment, as the key ruling front ally Trinamool Congress put a spanner on the Regulatory and Development Authority Bill of 2011.

Regretting that the high interest rates that the Employees Provident Fund organization (EPFO) offers is hurting the whole sector, he said the corporates which manage their own pension funds are not able to match the interest rate announced by the EPFO and have to fund it by themselves.

PTI