Sir, I’m very hopeful that this Calling Attention Motion today will actually get the response of the Labour Minister. I’m hopeful because I don’t think, in the first place, that the Labour Minister himself wants to go ahead with the proposed diversion of funds to stock market. This may have been concocted in two places, Sir. One is in a room very close by where a very senior parliamentarian sits. Or, as I notice today, Sir, in the third row of the treasury benches, where there is another gentleman who has flown away to another Department. He may also enlighten us.
Sir, I heard the speech of the Labour Minister on the Child Labour Bill – you have told us your beautiful life story, you are a practical person, you are a man of the grassroots. We are all behind you and you must do this for us together. Because we know internally, Sir, you may be under certain compulsions.Not only will we be happy, I think a lot of labourers in the country will also be very very happy.
Sir, my colleagues who have spoken before me have quite clearly explained what the problem is, so I’m not going to dwell on the problem. But the root of the problem is that I suspect that you’ve tried to use the American model. The American model has nothing wrong with it if you look at it. But the difference is, Sir, the American model has an independent retirement account which we don’t have. The American model has a social security account which we don’t have and the American model has retirement funds which we don’t have.
All we have is our provident fund. So, this is why I want to use this very serious Calling Attention Motion to alert you that some of the things that Americans do are good for their system but this doesn’t work for us. In the American model, they, invest their funds in low-risk bonds, they have municipal bonds; where do we have municipal bonds? Our stock market is a shallow stock market, our bonds are very, very shallow bonds. Someone was mentioning the casino – today it’s the casino, tomorrow it’s the stock market, next it’ll become something else.
Sir, these four or five banks who’ve been authorised to take this provident fund money (please also check out when it goes up from 5 to 15%. I am sure the Labour Minister will not allow this to happen because in his heart he does not want this to happen) – we’ll need to see where they are putting their funds. My question here is, are they putting their money into their own funds? This is another question.
And, Sir, I want to end. This is serious money, hard-earned money. After six months we don’t want to hear that they’ve come up with another new idea – now they want to go to Bombay Race Course and Chennai Race Course and Kolkata Race Course to invest this money.
Thank you, Sir.