Click to play videoNew Delhi: Industry bodies on Saturday told the government not to force any job quota on them.
Top industry chambers, which met on Saturday on the invitation of PMO to review the progress on affirmative action for weaker sections, told the Principal Secretary in the PMO, T K A Nair, that voluntary action on job creation for SC/STs will be much more effective than an Act of Parliament.
The industry bodies also sought incentives for themselves to help SC/ST candidates get private sector jobs.
And in the affirmative action, all that the industry bodies — which included the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Assocham — offered was to train SC/ST candidates and help them get jobs.
The meet, chaired T K A Nair, has decided to train 2400 entrepreneurs from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.
Assocham offered to train 300 SC/ST girls for MBA every year. It also proposed to set up an entrepreneur development centre. FICCI proposed incentive packages to promote investors from 110 districts with over 40 per cent SC/ST population.
The CII said it has prepared a code of conduct for private companies on this issue.
Just a year back, these industry bodies had proposed to initiate a series of "affirmative action" to improve the education and employment situation for backward classes.
They added that industry needed to take positive action to empower the backward classes to join the mainstream and help them develop abilities to compete and empower them with education and employment skills.
The entire debate kicked off after some sections of the UPA proposed quota in the private sector, to which the industry raised objections. The industry instead suggested affirmative action.
The CII had also appointed a panel headed by former TISCO chief J J Irani, which prepared a code of conduct for private companies.
The Government, meanwhile, is already facing flak for its attempts to increase quota for the backward classes in India's top educational institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
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