Himachal, CII differ over jobs for locals

The country's leading business lobby group and the Himachal Pradesh government are at loggerheads over the issue of providing jobs to locals in the hill state's booming industrial sector.

While the state government's new industrial policy makes it mandatory for all industrial units being set up in the state to provide 70 per cent of the jobs to locals, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) says this is hard to implement.

Top state government officials, including two ministers and leading industrialists, gathered here for the CII's state annual review meeting in this resort town on Tuesday to debate on various issues but the "employment issue" dominated the meet.

Due to a tax holiday till 2007 announced by the Central government three years ago, there has been a sharp rise in movement of industry from across the country to the hill state to seek incentives and an investment of around Rs 18,000 crore has already taken place.

But there remains growing disagreement and tension between the industry and the government over the issue of providing atleast 70 per cent compulsory jobs for locals in every unit.

"The simple reason why we cannot provide these jobs to locals is that there isn't the requisite trained manpower available within the state," said Alok Sharma, a leading industrialist, at the meet. Presenting the CII's study on "Recruitment and retention of Himachal workforce", Sharma elaborated the inability of the industry to adhere to the state law.

"We are asked by law to provide 70 per cent jobs in our units but according to our findings only 40 per cent of the workforce is actually available among locals, leaving a huge gap," said Sharma. "After conducting interviews we find majority of the candidates are not suitable for our jobs. Many are not flexible enough to adjust to an industrial work-culture and environment," he said.

The industry, he said, was being hit by the recruitment policy and the government needed to reconsider it, he said.

Countering this, state Industries Minister Kuldeep Kumar said the Industry needed to adopt a far more sensitive and generous attitude towards locals and train them patiently for the required jobs. "There are very few job opportunities for the locals in the government and the agriculture sector. So Industry, growing at 17 per cent in the state, is the only place which can absorb them," Kumar said.