Parliament ends session with reforms push

India's faltering economic reforms drive has received a boost after parliament approved a record 42 bills on a host of issues including prevention of money laundering and banking in its winter session that ended last week.

Analysts say economic legislation has in the past been hostage to unruly behaviour of lawmakers and frequent disruptions in one of the world's rowdiest parliaments.

"This session is a milestone for economic reforms. Members of parliament worked for national interest, rising above party politics," D H Pai Panandikar, president of the RPG Foundation, a private economic think-tank, said on Monday.

India embraced free market reforms in 1991 and has embarked on what is calls a second generation of reforms which involves labour laws, privatisation of state-run firms and cleaning up of its financial sector.

But the reforms drive has been mired in political and trade union opposition as well as bureaucratic red-tape, affecting growth in the world's 12th largest economy.

Among the bills approved in the last session of parliament was the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Securities Interest Bill which allows banks to seize assets of defaulters more easily.

Analysts say this will help India's financial sector which was saddled with bad loans totalling Rs 709 billion at the end of March 2002.

Lawmakers also cleared a bill to reform the country's largest mutual fund manager, Unit Trust of India, which froze redemptions on its flagship fund last year.

A bill enabling the nation's stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, to curb market manipulation also got the nod.

"This will set a precedent as in future members will take bills seriously," said Saumitra Chaudhuri, economic adviser with Indian credit rating agency ICRA.

Parliament was able to clear the second highest number of bills in a single session in the past 50 years because there were few adjournments in a house where walkouts and noisy slanging matches are routine.

Despite the smooth passage of bills in this session, analysts say the budget session which begins in February is expected to be stormy because politically sensitive bills to reform India's archaic labour laws and cut government stake in state-run banks are likely to be taken up then.

The government could also face a hostile opposition over its more than decade-old privatisation drive which hit a roadblock in September when the government deferred the sale of two oil firms.