The proposed Bill on providing 100 per cent reservation to group C and D categories in private companies was before the Law Department and very soon it would be tabled before the Cabinet for enactment of a law, according to Santosh Lad, Minister for Labour.
Responding to questions from presspersons here on Monday, Mr. Lad said that the proposed Bill would cover all private companies that have availed of government benefits in the form of land, water and other infrastructure, except the information technology and bio-technology sector at present.
“The idea is to ensure that the private firms, after enjoying the benefits provided by the government, would provide 70 per cent of the total posts and 100 per cent employment in group C and D categories to Kannadigas,” he said. He said that the review of the Dr. Sarojini Mahishi Committee recommendations on providing employment to Kannadigas was under way and the government was committed to implementing it.
Mr. Lad said that the government has issued a draft notification for ensuring payment of minimum wages and after going through the objections, if any, a final notification would be issued. He made it clear that stern action would be initiated against companies in the wake of complaints that minimum wages are not being paid. When his attention was drawn to the plight of Gadinad Kannadigas, particularly students studying in Kannada-medium, for want of facilities and infrastructure, he said that he would take it up with the authorities concerned to ensure that all facilities, that had to be provided by the State government, were provided.
Unorganised sector hit
Earlier, speaking at a party workers meeting on the effect of demonetisation, he said that it had severely affected the unorganised sector and the poorer sections of society.
“About 75 per cent of construction activities in Bengaluru alone had been affected leading to unemployment among the unorganised sectors. To draw the attention of the Union government on the ill-effects of demonetisation, the Congress has planned to stage a protest demonstration in Ballari on January 8 and demand an explanation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as to how far he was able to unearth black money and prevent funding to terrorist organisations,” he said and added that demonetisation had made people “cashless”.
Allum Veerbhadrappa, N.Y. Gopalkrishna, E. Tukaram, all legislators, and other district-level party leaders were present.
