BENGALURU: Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee on Monday said demanding employment on the basis of an applicant’s location is not valid. “It is a firm view that I hold. If a person is not capable, he should not be hired,” he told members of trade body FKCCI on the topic of 70 per cent reservation for locals in private industry.
However, he said that for those who have lost their land to industry, the trade body can come up with skilling programmes to make them qualified enough to be hireable. Mukherjee said fringe outfits like the Kannada Rakshana Vedike which try to force companies to hire unqualified locals will not be entertained.
During a frank interaction with the industry, the top bureaucrat said the abolition of trade licences and the high taxes paid by industry to panchayats would be looked into. “They (panchayats) have no right to collect tax from industry if adequate services are not provided for the money paid. I will discuss this with Rural Development and Panchayat Raj officials, and no exploitation will be allowed,” he said.
The chief secretary was accompanied by Industries Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, who said the IT/Aerospace Park will be provided with a four-lane approach road within four months. “For the first time in the country, we are also providing 40 MLD of treated water to the park to meet its needs. The infrastructure will be in place by December 15 and we will start providing the treated water by January-end.”
Both Mukherjee and Gupta said the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board would clear critical bottlenecks in existing industrial estates as a one-time assistance with government funds. However, industry associations have to give an undertaking that they will maintain the estates themselves later.
Mukherjee made it clear that the government would not tolerate any middlemen who prevented farmers from getting the best price for their products at APMCs.