The pension regulator PFRDA will soon roll out a slew of regulations to help expand and promote pension industry in the country, its officiating Chairman RV Verma has said.

This will be the first set of regulations post the PFRDA obtaining statutory powers through the enactment of Pension Bill last year.

On the anvil are specific regulations on the functioning of pension fund managers, grievance redressal for subscribers besides other areas like aggregators.

“Our priority will be to make regulations which will act as framework under which all intermediaries will have to operate”, said Verma, who had recently taken charge as PFRDA wholetime member and now appointed as officiating Chairman of this regulatory body.

The overarching objective of the proposed regulations will be to develop and expand the pension industry while ensuring its orderly growth, he said.

The Pension Bill 2011 was passed by Parliament in September last year after being in limbo since 2005.

A salient feature of this law was that it granted statutory recognition to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and bestowed it with specific powers to impose penalties and punishment for violation of guidelines.

“Now specific regulations will be framed under the powers vested with the PFRDA by the Bill enacted last year”, Verma said.

The PFRDA Board is likely to meet on Friday to consider and approve the first set of regulations, official sources said.

PFRDA was set up in October 2003 and had been functioning as an interim regulator without a statutory recognition.

This statutory recognition came only last year.

>srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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