Will continue dialogue with US on totalisation pact: Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said India would continue to engage with the US on the proposed social security or totalisation pact and that it would take time.

The proposed agreement seeks to do away with the requirement for an expatriate in either country to pay for social security schemes of the host country.

He said the issue should have been resolved earlier when the dimensions were manageable.

“Now the dimension of the money collected by the US Treasury is so large that for any government, this will be a major decision,” he told reporters here.

He added when the PM Narendra Modi-led government came to power in 2014, the country held discussions with the US on the matter.

“The subject has lingered for long and is not going to get resolved overnight...So we will continue to have the dialogue with the US...It’s going to take time, we recognise that,” Goyal said.

He added the US administration had sent ‘very’ detailed questionnaires about the social security systems here, which had all been responded to.

“The social security coverage details that we have shared with them, cover about 930 million residents, more than the required threshold. So we are eligible for a dialogue and resolution of totalisation and bringing in the Social Security Agreement,” he said.

At the invitation of the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Goyal visited the US between September 30-October 3. Goyal co-chaired with Raimondo the India-USA CEO Forum on October 2 and the 6th India-USA Commercial Dialogue on October 3.