Concerns associated with Local Reservation Laws

Concerns associated with Local Reservation Laws

There are various concerns associated with enactment of local reservation laws by states as it will have a negative impact on low-income internal migrants, which will also fail to go through the constitutionality test.

Recent Local Reservation Laws

• Local reservation laws are a popular trend in the Indian industry. States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and West Bengal are introducing job quota norms for local candidates on a priority basis. These laws have been dubbed Local Reservation Acts by various states.
• Andhra Pradesh became the first state to pass such a law in 2019. It reserved 75% private jobs across all categories in industrial units, factories, joint ventures as well as Public-Private Projects.
• In March 2021, the Haryana government notified its Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Bill, 2020. It provides for a 75 % job quota for local people in private sector jobs which offer a salary of less than Rs. 50,000 a month.

Issues with Local Reservation Laws

India is a country where there are people of different races, religions, castes and sexes. In order to ensure that everyone gets equal rights, the Constitution of India has clearly laid down different Articles and related laws to protect us from any kind of discrimination. Article 16(2) provides that there cannot be any discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them.

One of the aims of this paper is to control interstate migration but Census 2011 shows that the majority of migration is intrastate, which has been a challenge in any attempt at social engineering.

It is a known fact that the state of Gujarat has developed a favourable business environment and low costs of doing business. Taxation, labour cost and power tariff are some of the reasons why industries have shifted to Gujarat from other states. However, the major contribution to development of the textile industry in Gujarat is migration of labourers from Odisha. The workers from Odisha are providing services at cheap rates which is not possible for local labourers, thus providing an advantage to the industry.

Low-income migrants face a lot of issues. They are targeted by the natives, have to learn a new language. Also sometimes they lack job stability, and they don’t know the native laws. There is a fear of development of fake local residence certificate markets in order to get jobs within a state.