Industry says no to Maya's quota-based incentives

LUCKNOW: A day after Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati offered lucrative incentives and concessions to private sector companies willing to implement 30% quota voluntarily, industry associations rejected the proposal by saying that it was a ploy to bring them under government control.

Mayawati announced the policy decision on Friday after quietly getting it stamped by the state Cabinet a day earlier. Shocked over the proposal, industry sources said the private sector was not ‘‘attracted to it’’. In fact some of them might migrate from Uttar Pradesh, they warned.

Mayawati has offered incentives and concessions to the private sector for setting up industries, but only if they give 10% job reservation to SC/STs, 10% to OBCs and minorities and 10% to poor among upper castes.

On July 20, Mayawati had met PM Manmohan Singh and made a strong plea for legislating reservation in the private sector — by a constitutional amendment, if needed, to include it in the Ninth Schedule to insulate it from legal challenges.

But, without waiting for the Centre’s response, Mayawati introduced the policy in the state, probably with an eye to the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. She has cleverly sought to cushion the blow for industry by making its implementation voluntary.