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India Inc favours voluntary job quota

April 18, 2006 17:08 IST
Providing job quotas for the socially underprivileged in private sector should be voluntary and the industry should not be forced to implement reservation, captains of Indian industry said on Tuesday.

"Industry needs to do something about it (uplift of underprivileged) but at the same time there should not be any legislation in this regard," Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and MD, Bharti Televentures said.

Responding to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call to broadbase employment and make it representative, he felt the industry and government need to come together to adopt some middle path to solve this issue.

The industry should first showcase what it is already doing towards meeting social commitments and then further study what needs to be done in future, he said.

Job quota: PM's advice to industry

Asked how satisfied he was with what the industry was doing on the corporate social responsibility front, Mittal said the manufacturing sector's contribution was quite large and that of agriculture significantly larger, but service sector's participation was quite less.

He said CII was working very closely with the government to strike a right balance "so that the country does not suffer, political leaders fulfil their promises to the masses and industry can grow."

"I admit that state cannot do everything... I expect government and industry to come together on a middle ground," he said, adding that action should be "voluntary rather than (through) legislation."

Earlier, an empowered Group of Ministers had suggested that job reservation in private sector was possible through bringing in a new law.

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