Not yet pension-ready

The government has done well to steer clear of the suggestions made by the parliamentary standing committee while clearing the Pension Bill which, hopefully, will get passed in the next session of Parliament. Indicating a FDI limit in the Bill, which is what the Yashwant Sinha-chaired parliamentary committee wanted, would have meant the government would have to go back to Parliament each time it wanted to hike it. Similarly, implicitly guaranteed returns which Sinha wanted are what caused US-64 to go bust and what will cause the Employees Pension Scheme to go bust—based on a small sample which may not be representative, the 2010 shortfall in the EPS was reckoned at R50,000 crore.

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