Part - I

Any government can assure reservation to the backward classes only up to education and if possible at the maximum till jobs that too only in the government institutions and in its subsidiaries. But fortunately or unfortunately the present Congress led UPA government gone up to the extreme of considering the applicability of the very same reservation system in the private sector also. In the former case - reservation in the government and its allied institutions - almost all organizations are service oriented rather than profit oriented. However it is less than honest to claim that there is no government owned profit-making companies following the reservation system. But in reality, these companies either would be acting as a monopoly or there wouldn't be any major rival player in the region to compete with. Hence by and large the so-called "reservation system" was not a failure or did not prove disastrous.

But reservation in the private sector is more vulnerable in the following aspects: -

• MNCs - both having its back offices set up in India and also who have plans to open new offices in India in the future - who contribute a major chunk of employing numerous technology driven Indians, there exists a possibility of being apathetic towards such move since they may comprehend that the new Indian government has started poking its nose into private sector businesses too. Hence winding up of their Indian operations might take place though not immediately, which in turn act as a stumbling block to foreign investments and hence affect forex reserves and initiate huge lay-offs.

• Well-established Indian Companies and entrepreneurs don't find any major drawback since they might have become proficient and dexterous to handle the shackles of our government's red tapes and bureaucracies. However such system is bound to instigate hesitation and demoralize new as well as upcoming Indian entrepreneurs.

• Government officials may use it as a tool to demand more undisclosed and illegitimate sum while processing and issuing community certificates and may (misuse) use this opportunity as a perennial source of earning non-taxable income.

• Proliferation of forged certificates may arise and the number of cases relating to it will be on the increase.

• Rich people from backward classes will also be benefited from this system whereas the genuine intention was to benefit the poor in the backward classes. On the other, it may completely single out and affect adversely the poor from the upper classes.

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* Contributed by: -
A. Tirumalai Prakash,
PGP - I,
BIM, Trichy.