No reservations in pvt sector: FICCI

New Delhi: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI, does not want reservations in the private industry.

It has proposed an alternative to the Finance Minister. CNBC-TV18 reports on a slice of the Finance Minister's interaction with Delhi's three industry chambers, to achieve 12 per cent annual manufacturing growth.

Among the novel ideas floated at the Finance Minister's interaction with industry chambers, was FICCI's proposal for manufacturing clusters in districts dominated by dalits.

There are 27 such districts in the country says FICCI, where the dalit population is 40 per cent plus.

President, FICCI, Saroj Poddar said, "There is hundreds of SEZs being floated. We are saying, give the incentives to these manufacturing clusters as well, so that Scheduled Castes (SCs), and Scheduled Tribes (STs), can be employed in full swing."

The industries that FICCI has identified are labour intensive ones like footwear making. It has the beauty of bringing jobs to those at the bottom of the social heap.

Finance Minister, P Chidambaram said, "These labour intensive manufacturing clusters, if located in backward districts, could help employ SCs and STs and Other Backward Castes, OBCs."

FICCI sure knows how to strike the right political chords. It has also proposed that it will partner the government in the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and this will have no fiscal implications.

President, FICCI, Saroj Poddar says, "We are saying, allow us to guarantee 100 days of work on a contract basis without fixed labour."

The National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme is meant to alleviate hunger poverty and is confined to 150 most backward districts. FICCI's proposal is a thinly disguised attempt to get the government to revise contract labour laws.