Mumbai: Despite the Shiv Sena holding the industry portfolio in the state government, local youth are not getting 80 per cent of the jobs. It’s an obligation by the industries, who are availing the state government’s incentives to give 80 per cent jobs to locals, who are domiciled in Maharashtra, said industry minister Subhash Desai. But this provision has never been implemented,
Mr Desai told The Asian Age that he noticed this fact and had a meeting with the labour department. “We will check registers of these companies and find how many jobs they have offered locals. We will undertake a special drive in the state with the help of all collectors. We will take action against those who have not implemented it and will protect interests of locals, he stated.
The Shiv Sena was founded by Bal Thackray to protect the interests of the local Marathi community and the party has always criticised previous governments for not creating job opportunities for the locals.
Meanwhile, BJP chief spokesperson, Madhav Bhandari raised a few questions. “What was the Shiv Sena’s industry minister doing in the last three years? Why didn’t they protect the interests of locals and Marathi manoos?” he asked.
The state government started an incentive scheme in 1964 to establish new industries in the state. The state provides financial assistance up to 5-7 years. Scheme benefits can be extended for expansion and new units also. At present about 25,000 industries are operational in the state, out of which approximately 19,000 are MSME (micro medium and small scale). The state has spent Rs 2500 cr on incentives and same provision is made for this year also, said a highly placed source from the industry department.
“The demand is very high this year and we need at least Rs 4000 crore.
We will make this provision in supplementary demands,” according to an official. As per provision in the rules of the scheme, its obligatory for these companies, who are partaking benefits of the government scheme to give 80% jobs to local youth, who are Maharashtra domiciled. But no one ever implemented this and successive governments also never took it seriously.
