Not affirmative enough
ARATI R JERATH , TNN, May 29, 2010, 11.03am IST
Three years ago, Indian industry, prodded by the Manmohan Singh
government, unveiled a voluntary code of conduct for affirmative
action to provide job opportunities in the private sector for the
scheduled castes and other backward communities. Last week, the Prime
Minister at his press conference acknowledged that implementation had
been sluggish.
The figures speak for themselves. According to the CII's own
estimates, affirmative action agendas drawn up by nearly 100 of its
member companies have made a difference to the lives of just 37,435
SC/ST youths over the past three years. That's a drop in the ocean in
a country of 1.2 billion people. Obviously, as the PM said, the
process needs to move forward at a much faster pace.
Industry has been extremely reluctant to adopt the government model of
job quotas. Instead, it promised in its voluntary code of conduct to
help build skills and train Dalit youth to make them employable.
Unfortunately, it largely remains a promise on paper. FICCI, for
instance, in the last three years, has adopted one district out of the
600-odd in the country where it is working with the administration to
identify and address the skill gaps and education needs of those below
the poverty line. Although it is also in touch with some Industrial
Training Institutes (ITI) to develop course models that promote
employability, the demand is so huge that its efforts seem to
disappear into a black hole.
As government jobs shrink in a liberalised economy, it is increasingly
becoming the responsibility of the private sector to lend a helping
hand to backward and marginalised groups. But as an official in one of
the chambers of commerce admitted, it's a "big job'' to sensitise
industry on what affirmative action actually means on the ground.
A major stumbling block is industry's refusal to conduct a caste
census among its employees or to ask new employees to fill in a column
marked 'caste' . Consequently, even if affirmative action is
happening, there is no way of knowing.
Yet, it would be wrong to say that the ground is not shifting. Now
that affirmative action has become a part of national discourse,
industry has begun to accept the concept in principle at least. All
five recognised chambers of commerce in the country have set up cells
to monitor implementation of the voluntary code of conduct. But the
Prime Minister's Office, which is the nodal point on the issue, will
have to step in again if the process is to move faster as Manmohan
Singh promised.
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