After a long and tortuous journey through two different Parliament sessions and the parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Bill, now rechristened Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) Bill, was expected to pass muster in the current budget session. Now, once again, uncertainty looms large.

The billion dollar question being asked by foreign insurance companies is to what extent will the left parties be in a position to stall the IRDA Bill. Will the left parties be able to stall the bill in the short term or even in the long-term, they wonder.

If elections are not called immediately and a Congress government or a Congress-aided government is formed, then foreign companies feel it will be difficult for the bill to get passed as the new governmentwill be hugely dependent on the left. The left is not expected to yield even an inch on the issue of opening up the insurance sector to foreigners.

In the long term, foreign companies are keeping their fingers crossed for a strong majority government, Congress or BJP, does not make a difference. According to a representative from a foreign insurance company, speaking under the condition of anonymity, said that the IRDA Bill will surely get support from both the Congress and the BJP. ``The issue is no longer whether the bill will be passed or not but when,'' he remarked.

The political uncertainty has punctured the hopes of foreign companies. Those companies which have been in the country for a long time and have not managed to secure a joint venture partner were putting that extra bit of effort to urgently put an MoU in place. The feeling of urgency is now gone and the foreign companies are back to making sure that caution is not sacrificed for speed.

It is more than five years since the now deceased RNMalhotra submitted his report on insurance reforms to the Congress government in January 1994. The report, which comprehensively discussed various areas in the insurance sector where reform was needed, had raised hopes in both foreign companies and Indian companies which wanted to enter this area.

It was in 1994 that foreign companies had started filing applications for representative offices in the hope that these would soon get upgraded to their new India operations office. They thought at that point that it would take five years or more for the sector to open.

It is not just foreign and Indian companies which are heavily despondent. The office of the IRA in central Delhi wears a morose look. Right from the chairman to junior desk officers, everyone has been praying that the sector open so that they can start working at last. The plight of these bureaucrats is pitiable as they have positions but no powers as yet. The IRA does not enjoy statutory status at the moment, it does not even have powers toregulate the two state-owned monopolies - the Life Insurance Corporation and General Insurance Corporation.

But everyone in not unhappy. LIC and GIC are as pleased that their turf lies unencroached. Talk of opening up the insurance sector has put an immense amount of pressure on these two companies to shed flab and get their act in order.

Meanwhile, some of the foreign companies which had earlier tied up with Indian firms have lost interest and broken their alliances. Some Indian companies, who were waiting for a long time, have also interest in insurance. However, banks like SBI and others are keenly waiting for the much-awaited permission.