The Hindu : Protect quota for SCs, STs while disinvesting: Laxman

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002

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National

Protect quota for SCs, STs while disinvesting: Laxman

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 9. The former Bharatiya Janata Party president, Bangaru Laxman, has joined issue on disinvestment, demanding that in any review of the policy the social justice dimension must be kept in mind.

So far several leaders, including some Ministers, have demanded a ``mid-term'' review of disinvestment raising issues and doubts on strategic sales, disinvestment of profit-making public sector units and also expressing security concerns.

Mr. Laxman said today that the interests of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, who got reservation in jobs up to 22.5 per cent in all public sector units, must be kept in mind while disinvesting. Any agreement of sale must carry conditions making it mandatory for the new owners to continue giving reservation to these sections.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, a copy of which was released to the press, Mr. Laxman said the Tenth Plan envisaged disinvestment to the tune of Rs. 78,000 crores and this would have a large impact on employment. ``We have to fine-tune our policy in such a way that whatever little gains these communities were able to obtain in the last five decades are not nullified,'' he said.

Already there was a sharp decline in public employment, as shown in the most recent Economic Survey, the growth in the private sector was not sufficient to compensate for this decline, and a further loss of jobs in the public sector was expected as the result of the effort to curb non-productive Government expenditure through downsizing the Government.

He said that since the Prime Minister himself had talked of a policy ``review'', the terms of review must include the social justice issue, so far ignored by the others who had raised issues related to the disinvestment policy.

At the same time, Mr. Laxman said his was not a plea against disinvestment. In fact, he had said that perhaps this was in keeping with the historical and economic necessities in the changed global scenario. But a disinvestment policy must keep in mind the issue of opportunities for employment for the SCs and the STs. After all, the entire nation, across the political spectrum, was committed to this Constitutional obligation.

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