National

Maharashtra makes job preference for locals more stringent

MUMBAI: As if in response to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) demand, a new government resolution (GR) issued on Monday ensures strict implementation of an existing policy under which local people get 80 per cent preference in industrial jobs. The GR has drawn up a framework in which this policy can be implemented and monitored at the State and district level.

According to Mr. Aziz Khan, Principal Secretary, Industries Department, since 1968 the government has a longstanding policy of giving 80 per cent preference to local people in jobs in small, medium and large industries. Since 1968, there have been four GRs on the subject but this one for the first time draws up a way to operationalise the policy and identify gaps, if any, in implementing it.

The new GR makes the monitoring and implementing process more systematic as it is supervised closely.

Mr. Khan said by and large most industries had given preference to local people in jobs all over the State. The database is yet incomplete but the policy seems to have been implemented through the years. The GR also says it is expected that the person in authority who is recruiting people must know Marathi.

After the strident agitation by MNS president Raj Thackeray who has demanded 100 per cent reservation in jobs for local people, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has been saying that such a policy already exists. Mr. Deshmukh had said the State government was already sensitive to the needs of local people.

This time round, the State is leaving nothing to chance and has set up a coordination, implementation and monitoring committee headed by the Development Commissioner, Industries, and this will ensure that the jobs scenario is monitored closely. It will identify gaps in implementation in cases where skilled workers are not available and discuss how they can be filled if necessary.

As Mr. Khan put it, the new GR had a diagnostic element and the committees are broad based to include a wide spectrum of departments so that the monitoring is efficient.

The committee will meet least thrice a year to review the situation. At the district level, committees will be set up headed by the Collector to oversee that jobs in industries go to local people. These committees will meet every three months for a review. The GR specified that every industry will have to employ locals in 50 per cent of the supervisory category jobs and 80 per cent of the total employees, including the 50 per cent in the supervisory category, will be local.

Those who are local or have a domicile certificate, which means they have lived in the State for 15 years, are eligible for preference in jobs.

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