Ahead of the Assembly polls in 2018 the ruling Congress Government in Karnataka is bringing an amendment to quota rules to accommodate 100 per cent job reservation to local population Kannadigas in blue collar jobs in private sector, but Chief Minister Siddaramaiah now bats for dialogue before it is achieved. He wants quota reservation but through debate and dialogue.
“It is high time to think about reservation in private sector. It should be achieved through debate and dialogue,” he said at the Ninth National Conference of the Indian Association of lawyers Bengaluru on Tuesday.
Siddaramaiah also said the need of the hour was to provide education, secure employment, housing and health facilities for the oppressed and underprivileged classes, without any further loss of time. “Our Government has realised the same and taken various positive steps in this direction,” he added.
Siddaramaiah said his Government took the decision to conduct door-to-door social and educational survey of people of the State in January 2014.
“The same is executed by the State Commission for Backward Classes. The data is awaited from the Commission. This exercise is the first of its kind since 1931,” he said.
Siddaramaiah, who is playing appeasement politics to the hilt, said the idea behind the survey was to collect the current demographic data and various aspects relating to living conditions of people and accordingly configure developmental policies and programmes to achieve an egalitarian society through socio-economic justice.
“On several occasions judicial pronouncements by our respected judiciary also pointed out the need for collection of updated empirical data by conducting survey of the entire populace to decide whether the reservations in favour of OBC groups are proportionate or not,” he said.
The Congress had kicked up a row inviting criticism from various quarters over its plans to give 100 per cent reservation for Kannadigas in all private sector industries, barring IT and biotechnology firms.