Bangalore backs IT companies’ job quota opposition

The government in the south Indian state of Karnataka announced Wednesday that it agreed with the view of local IT companies that recruitment to IT companies should be decided on merit, and that there should be no job quotas for natives of the state.

The announcement comes a day after activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (Karnataka Protection Forum) protested outside the headquarters of Infosys Technologies, India’s second largest outsourcing company. The protestors were demanding more jobs in IT companies for the native, Kannada-speaking population of Karnataka state.

Bangalore, which is the capital city of Karnataka, has emerged as a software development and services hub, with a number of large Indian outsourcing companies, and development subsidiaries of multinational companies having operations in the city.

The government endorses the stand of the IT companies that recruitment should be strictly on merit, Karnataka state IT secretary M.K. Shankaralinge Gowda told reporters Wednesday.

The protest by the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike reflects the concerns of the native Kannadiga population about the changing demographics of the city. The outsourcing boom has been met to a large extent by migration into the city from other states of the country, and by non-Kannadiga populations that were already resident in the city.

However, IT companies say that they are hiring locally, though they don’t really check out how many of their staff are Kannadiga. Infosys hires from 46 engineering colleges in the state, and has development centers in three locations within the state, said a spokeswoman for Infosys on Wednesday.

Although the Vedike is a fringe organization, the demand for job reservations in the IT sector for Kannadiga people has also been raised in the past by politicians in the local government. Earlier this month, the state’s minister for finance and industries, P. G. R. Sindhia said that IT companies, which were demanding better infrastructure for the city, should recognize that it is equally important to provide employment to Kannadiga people in their firms. However, the government, in a subsequent reconciliation meeting with the IT industry over the city’s deteriorating infrastructure, conceded that employment to the IT industry would have to be based on merit alone.