The Hindu Business Line : <I>Living with quotas </I>

The debate on the Government's proposal to increase the quotas in professional institutions such as medical and engineering colleges and the IITs and IIMs and on applying the policy of reservations to the private sector is proceeding entirely along wrong directions. It is undeniable that there is a great divide between the forward communities, well-endowed resources-wise and opportunity-cum-ability-wise, and the still-to-make-good backward classes, making some kind of affirmative action inescapable. By adopting a dog-in-the-manger attitude, the more fortunate sections of the society are only making things worse.

As regards the private sector, it must remember that the Governments at the Centre and the States have managed to make an impressive showing in many sectors while still conforming to reservations in employment all these years. The National Thermal Power Corporation, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission and the Railways, just to cite a few examples, have a record of performance that can be the pride of any country. Why, take the Delhi Metro: Reservations in appointments and promotions have not come in the way of its giving a spectacular account of itself.

Instead of taking an implacably negative stand, the private sector should put to work its innovative and creative faculties to devise institutional mechanisms to make the most of the situation. When it came to the privileged upper crust, the mega industrial houses had no problem setting up a forbiddingly costly school of business which is notionally Indian, but is perceptibly dependent on Western collaboration, ethos and practices.

Displaying the same zeal, all the chambers of commerce and industry should join hands, to raise the corpus fund necessary to set up Institutes of Training for Social Equality and Equity in all major cities to upgrade the soft and hard skills of the depressed classes to the desired level.

The private sector should not stop with just going after financial capital; they should also show their readiness to build up human capital.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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