75% Job Reservation for Locals in Private Sector Planned by Rajasthan :

1. After Andhra Pradesh, the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan is also planning to grant 75 per cent reservations for locals in private sector jobs.

2. The government is contemplating providing job reservations for people of the state in big industries who have been given certain benefits by the state government in terms of financial package. Also, projects running under pubic private partnership and small industries will employ the local residents under the scheme.

3. In Gujarat, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the competitive exams have one paper in local language which benefits the local residents. Here, we never discriminate among people on basis of where they have come, but at the same time, government  also planning to provide reservations in private sector to benefit  state youth. However, the final decision shall be taken after discussion with other members.

4. However,  there are many challenges being seen in the initiative as in most cases, hiring is done on pan-India basis. And reservation can also pose a threat to the talent pool.

5. Also, the decision of the Gehlot government would impact a major chunk of people from Bihar and West Bengal who are working in the state in the private sector. Apart from providing reservations to the local people, the government will also decide the guidelines for the minimum salary and the private sector will pay salaries to the local people according to the guidelines.

System of Resevation :

Reservation for locals in jobs, either in government or private sector, seems to be the new trend spreading across the states, with some already taking the decision in this regard and some others mulling it. The Andhra Pradesh government got a legislation passed by the state Assembly two days back to provide for 75 per cent quota for locals in the private sector. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath too promised earlier this month to bring a law to provide 70 per cent reservation for locals in the private companies in the state. Earlier, in November last year, the Maharashtra Assembly passed a bill providing for 16 per cent quota for Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions. It was upheld by the Bombay High Court in February this year, although it scaled the percentage down to 10 per cent.

The moves to provide quota to locals have added a new chapter in the quota politics in the country, which was earlier confined  to socially and economically backward sections like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).There is already a simmering anger among the upper castes over the issue of quota.

In 1990, the country witnessed a bloody agitation for weeks against the Mandal Commission, which recommended 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), raising the total quota for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs in government jobs and educational institutions to 40 per cent. The Commission had been set up in 1979 and its recommendations came in 1980. But it was the V. P. Singh government which ordered its implementation in August 1990, triggering a spree of of self-immolations and other kinds of angry protests by upper caste students in Delhi and some other parts of the country.

The spiral of self-immolations was started by a Delhi college student Rajiv Goswami on September 19, who took the step and became of the face of the agitation. Subsequently, over 200 other students resorted to self-immolation, out of which 62 died.There were also violent street protests in Delhi and some other places and clashes between students and police.
Meanwhile, a petition was moved in the Supreme Court against implementation of the Mandal Commission and the top court, in a judgement in November 1992, upheld the government order and paving the way for its implementation.

The Commission had depended on 11 criteria and used various techniques to arrive at the conclusion as to who qualified as OBC to be entitled for 27 per cent reservation. The criteria were broadly social, economic and educational in nature.