Haryana govt's law mandating 75% job reservation for locals to come into effect from Jan 15, 2022

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. (File photo)

The law mandating 75 percent job reservation for locals in Haryana will come into effect from January 15, 2022, stated a notification issued by the state government on November 6.

The legislation, Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Bill, 2020, was passed by the state assembly in November last year. The bill was given assent by Governor SN Arya on February 26.

As per the law, 75 percent of jobs in the private sector should be reserved for locals. However, the quota will apply only for jobs that offer a gross monthly salary of up to Rs 50,000.

In March, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) had marked its opposition to the law, claiming that it would "negatively impact" the private sector.

The IT/ITeS sector and tech industry had also voiced concern against the law, claiming that this would limit access to quality talent.

Concerns were also raised that some of the job-producing companies may shift their base from Gurugram to neighbouring hubs such as New Delhi, Noida or even Jaipur.

Chief Minister ML Khattar had, however, attempted to address the objections by pointing towards the salary cap as mentioned in the law. By restricting quota only for jobs offering up to Rs 50,000 monthly pay, the law will largely cover only unskilled and semi-skilled labour, he had suggested.

In a conversation with Moneycontrol in March, the chief minister had stated that the reservation rule would be applicable only for non-technical jobs.

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A three-fourth reservation for the local population in private sector jobs was one of the major promises made by Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) before the 2019 assembly polls. The party pushed ahead with its job quota agenda after forming the coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

JJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, who had tabled the legislation in the state assembly, had described the job quota as essential to curb the high unemployment rate in Haryana.