India moves ahead with quota for backward classes in outsourcing private market - death for indian outsourcing?
Media Release
May 25, 2006

Efforts are on to reach a consensus with private sector on the contentious issue of bringing a legislation to provide reservation in private industries, Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar has said.

“The dialogue of reservation in private sector with private industries is still on”, she said in parliament while making a statement on the status of implementation of the recommendations of the standing committee on social Justice and empowerment.

She informed the Lok Sabha on May 23 that twenty captains of industry of private sector on May 21, 2005, had issued a statement wherein they have committed to expand their activities for disadvantaged persons with regard to scholarships, company-run private schools, partnership with government schools, vocational training in-house as well as in partnership with IITS, vendor development programmes, etc the GoM constituted by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue has also considered the opinions of three legal luminaries that a law can not be enacted for providing reservations in private sector without amending the constitution, she said.

Though there is no final decision on the issue by the government, Kumar has been referring to the National common minimum programme of the UPA government, which she says has a provision for reservation in private sector.

“In the National common minimum programme, there is a provision for reservations for SC/STs in the private sector,” Kumar has said on several occasions when she was asked about the status of reservation in private sector for SC/STs. The National common minimum programme adopted by the UPA allies, both inside the government and those supporting from outside, clearly speaks for affirmative action as also reservation for these sections in the private sector.

The Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment has been talking about bringing legislation if the private sector failed to do so unilaterally. She was also referring to the two-year time frame given in the common minimum programme to private sector for providing reservations and had even expressed willingness to give some more time to them for taking steps in this direction. Kumar is a member of the Sharad Pawar-led GOM, which has been entrusted with the task of evolving a consensus on the demand for reservation for SC/STs in the private sector. The GoM, which had several rounds of talks with leading industrial houses on the issue, is yet to conclude its deliberations, but the Minister had indicated an amendment in the constitution to facilitate reservations for them. She claims that private sector had toned down its opposition to the proposal and was willing to give them more time to reach a consensus on the emotive issue. The private sector, led by Ratan Tata with whom the GOM had several rounds of talks, has expressed willingness for “affirmative action in terms of training and scholarships” but had vehemently opposed any legislation in this regard.

India moves ahead with quota for backward classes in outsourcing private market - death for indian outsourcing?
Media Release
Efforts are on to reach a consensus with private sector on the contentious issue of bringing a legislation to provide reservation in private industries, Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar has said.
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