The second. meeting of the Coordination Committee to promote Affirmative Action in the Indian Industry was held today under the Chairmanship of Principal Secretary to PM. Besides Secretaries of the concerned Ministries of GOI, Presidents of CII and ASSOCHAM, past President, FICCI and other senior representatives of industry attended the meeting.

The Committee reviewed the progress made in promoting affirmative action by industry since its last meeting held in October, 2006 and the interaction of senior industry representatives with the Ministry of Industry & Commerce in November, 2006. Since then CII and ASSOCHAM have finalized a Code of Conduct on Affirmative Action being followed by its members and circulated it amongst the members for adopting it. FICCI agreed to soon evolve a similar plan of action for its constituents. There was also agreement that an Ombudsman with regional benches would be set up by each apex chamber to monitor the compliance of the voluntary Code of Conduct by its members.

Realising that there is' need to enhance their employability, all the Chambers agreed to intensify their efforts in developing the skills sets of SC/ST persons. They are already participating in public-private partnership launched by the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment to adopt 300 ITls during the current year and develop them as centers of excellence. While noting that stipends are available under the existing government schemes to enable SC/ST candidates to pursue courses in various ITls, the Chambers agreed to top up, the financial incentives as needed, so as to ensure that the available seats for SC/ST candidates in ITls do not remain unfilled. In addition, they also agreed that skill development efforts through other mechanisms and institutions are also needed, particularly in those districts where there is heavy concentration of SC/ST population.

Another element of affirmative action agreed to by industry was with respect to developing entrepreneurial abilities amongst SC/ST persons. It was noted that all the Chambers have taken significant steps during the last few months to promote entrepreneurship through professional agencies. CII mentioned that 345 SC/ST persons selected, after an intensive selection process are currently undergoing training to become entrepreneurs at 7 centres in different parts of the country with the assistance of Entrepreneurial Development Institute, Ahmedabad and during the current financial year it expects to train 500 such persons. FICCI announced the setting up of four such entrepreneurial development centers in each of which it would annually train 600 SC/ST persons. ASSOCHAM indicated that 300 of nearly 1000 candidates trained by it, have already set up their new ventures.

There was general agreement that there should be positive discrimination in employment in favour of SC/ST persons, i.e., other things being equal, SC/ST candidates would be given preference in employment. This approach, according to the industry representatives should result in sizeable increase in employment of these persons in the organized industry. In this context, they agreed that they would include reporting of data on the new employment for SC/ST persons created during the year in the Code of Conduct being prescribed for their members.

It was further agreed that the Presidents of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce will together deliberate on what further action needs to be initiated by them to make the programme of affirmative action more responsive. This would include evolving measures for encouraging location of industries in areas dominated by SC/ST persons, creating institutional structures within their organizations to carry out activities for skill upgradation and promoting entrepreneurship, and for raising resources from industry to fund their affirmative action programme.

The action taken to implement the programme agreed today would be reviewed by the Coordination Committee after a period of two months.