India to continue dialogue with US on totalisation pact: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that India will continue to engage with the US on the proposed social security or totalisation pact and it will 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 that 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 that when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government came to power in 2014, the country held discussions with the US on the matter.

"The subject that has festered far too long and is not going to resolve over night...So we will continue to have the dialogue with the US...It's going to take time, we recognise that," Goyal said.

He noted that the President Joe Biden administration has sent some "very