No quota plan, Telangana to ask pvt sector to hire locals

By Mohammed Shafeeq

Hyderabad, July 26 (IANS) While Andhra Pradesh has passed a bill marking 75 per cent reservation in jobs for locals in the private sector, its sibling Telangana has no such proposal, though the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government is encouraging the private players to recruit more locals by offering them incentives.

Telangana has 95 per cent reservation for locals in government jobs.

TRS leaders say the government is not likely to come out with any rule for reservation for locals in private companies as it could hurt the industry and affect flow of investments into the state.

Though TRS-led the movement for Telangana state with the slogan of 'water, resources and jobs', it did not push for reserving quota in private industry for locals.

This is believed to be mainly because Hyderabad, the Information Technology hub which drives the state's economic growth, has a cosmopolitan culture with national and global giants employing people from across the country.

Analysts say any move to reserve quota for locals in industries may upset the investors in the city, also known for pharma, life sciences, aerospace and defence industry.

Though TRS always maintained that creating jobs for locals in both public and private sectors is its priority, it did not frame any rules in this regard for the industry. The government is offering some incentives to industries employing local people but it is not insisting that they hire locals across the board.

The Industry Department expects industries coming up outside Hyderabad to provide at least low-level jobs to locals.

The opposition parties too fought with the TRS government over the issue of filling vacancies in government jobss. They targeted Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao for failing to keep his word to provide one lakh jobs to educated youth.

The TRS, however, claims that steps were taken to fill the vacancies in various departments.

Following the new zonal system notified last year by the Ministry of Home Affairs, local reservation in all cadres was increased to 95 per cent.

The government created seven zones and two multi-zones to address the imbalance in providing employment opportunities in the government sector to people of backward areas.

The new zonal system was introduced after the government reorganised the districts to increase their number to 31 from 10. Under this system even higher-level posts were reserved for locals.