Bengaluru: Reservation of jobs in private firms in Karnataka is capped at 70 per cent for non-management roles and 50 per cent for management-level employees, Labour Minister Santosh Lad said this morning.

On Tuesday there was controversy after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah declared there would be 100 per cent reservation for Kannadigas in all Group C and Group D jobs in private companies.

The Chief Minister said the decision had been taken at a cabinet meet Monday.

"The Cabinet meeting held yesterday approved a bill to make recruitment of 100 per cent Kannadigas mandatory for 'C and D' grade posts in all private industries in the state," Siddaramaiah said on X.

He said it was his government's wish Kannadigas be given an opportunity to lead a comfortable life in their state and not be deprived of jobs in 'Kannada land'.

That post has now been deleted.

The government's "discriminatory" decision was not well received by business leaders, many of whom said the IT industry, on which Bengaluru has made much of its fortune, would suffer.

"This bill is discriminatory, regressive... this is a fascist bill, as in 'Animal Farm' (the George Orwell novel)," Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services, had said on X.

Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw was more circumspect; she welcomed the proposal but called for "caveats that exempt highly skilled recruitment from this policy".

"As a tech hub we need skilled talent and whilst the aim is to provide jobs for locals, we must not affect our leading position in technology by this move. There must be a caveat..." she said on X.

Ms Mazumdar-Shaw's company's registered office is in Bengaluru's Electronics City, an 800-acre industrial and technology hub that also has offices of Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and others.

Biocon, a global biopharmaceuticals enterprise, employs over 16,500 people.

RK Misra, co-Chairman of ASSOCHAM Karnataka, called the proposal "short-sighted".

"Another genius move from Government of Karnataka. Mandate LOCAL RESERVATION and APPOINT GOVT OFFICER IN EVERY COMPANY to monitor. This will scare (companies)... short-sighted," he said.

Drafted by the Labour Department, the proposed bill claimed the jobs in question were being given largely to people from the northern states who were then settling in Karnataka. It proposed that Karnataka-based companies benefitting from state-provided infrastructure reserve jobs for locals.

The proposed policy, it is understood, reflected recommendations made by the Sarojini Mahishi Committee, which said large, medium and small-scale industrial units with over 50 workers had to reserve 65 and 80 per cent of Group A and Group B jobs for Kannadigas.

All Group C and Group D jobs would be kept for Kannadigas, the report had said.

However, no policies were formulated regarding these recommendations.

Source: NDTV