The Punjab and Haryana high court has done well to quash a Haryana law that reserved up to 75% of private jobs, paying up to 30,000 a month, for local residents. However, Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Singh Chautala has said the government will move the Supreme Court after studying the judgment. The government shouldn’t challenge the order. The populist act to introduce reservation for locals in the private sector was bad in law and unfriendly to industry and business.
Haryana’s immediate concern – assembly elections are less than a year away – is high unemployment. It has the fourth highest rate of unemployment (9% as per Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2021-22) in the country. It is higher than the national average (4.1%) and that of its neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. The domicile reservation law was a poll promise of the BJP-Jannayak Janta Party: In a state with close to five lakh registered job seekers (the state directorate of employment) it had a big appeal. The government should look at other avenues to provide them employment other than promise quotas – which, by driving away industry, may only shrink job opportunities in Haryana.
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