5 Alternatives to Local Job Reservation

1. Tackle Core Issues of Unemployment by more job creation and industrialisation rather than such moves. Government should provide incentives to industries for more investments and create an enabling environment for it.
2. Government should focus on making the youth of a state employable with proper investments in education, health and skill development.
3. Need to promote labour intensive industries, sunrise sectors (hi-tech companies) to absorb all kinds of job seekers.
4. Promote Self-employment: So that people create opportunities for themselves. E.g.: MUDRA; STAND UP INDIA
5. Promote services sectors such as tourism with high positive spillover on other sectors.

5 Difficulties in Implementing Local Job Reservation

1. May not pass legal scrutiny: Article 16 does not empower the state government to provide for such reservation, rather the Parliament is empowered to do so.
2. Politically Motivated Move: Rather than addressing the core concerns like structural reforms, infrastructure development and so on, states are using reservation as a tool to capture votes in the short term.
3. Dangerous for unity of the country: Such moves could lead to opening of a Pandora’s Box where other states start implementing such policies, which result in fractures in unity of India.
4. Concerns of the industry: Factories may be employing labour migrating in from different states. It may be difficult/expensive to find locals for the jobs and consequently their ease of doing business will be hampered.
5. Polarisation and Communal Strife: Such a move may disturb social harmony as many workers and their families may get uprooted because of disruption of their income source.

5 Reasons Why Local Job Reservation is Demanded

1. Agrarian Distress: Agrarian sector is under tremendous stress across the country, and young people are desperate to move out of the sector.
2. Lack of jobs: There is a serious dearth of jobs (private and government). Mot only are the jobs too few, they are precarious and do not pay well.
3. Displacement of Landowners: Since most of the land requirement is met by acquiring private agricultural lands, the landowners are being displaced and deprived of their occupation and thereby loss of income.
4. Discrimination: Several reports like the State of Working India 2018 released by the Centre for Sustainable Employment of the Azim Premji University have shown that discrimination is one of the reasons for under representations of Dalits and Muslims in the corporate sector.
5. Sentiment against workers migrating from distressed regions and ‘stealing’ limited local opportunities have created pressure upon regional politicians to take some steps.