New Delhi: Home Minister P Chidamabaram
on Wednesday said reservation was perhaps the most effective
instrument of affirmative action but his colleague Salman
Khurshid felt the need to go beyond with the country moving
into a different development paradigm.
"If there is a better instrument we should certainly
debate that instrument but I believe that reservation is
perhaps the most effective instrument for affirmative action
that we have today," said Chidambaram addressing the
conference of state minority commissions here.
Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, whose ministry
is the nodal ministry looking after the Rangnath Misra
Commission report that advocated reservations for Muslims and
other minorities, however, struck a different note.
"Now that India is moving into a different development
paradigm and a different economic paradigm, we need to go
beyond reservation. The affirmative action that has been
considered at the PM`s initiative for the SCs and STs can also
be used for the benefit of backwards among minorities and
minorities generally," Khurshid said.
He said the process for this affirmative action has
already begun and cited the 15-point Programme as an example.
"Now in banking sector, we are looking at 13 per cent
priority sector loans going to minorities this year. 15 per
cent is our target. Similarly, other development funds that
goes out from the Centre are also subjected to a financial
and physical target of 15 per cent. This will have its own
impact," he said.
Chidambaram said the debate on reservation is ongoing --
what are the limits of reservation, what are the opportunities
that are being thrown open by reservation, what are goals that
can be achieved through reservation. The debate will not end
soon, he said.
He said reservation has three aspects -- the first is the
issue of reservation for socially, educationally and
economically backward classes which are sanctified in the
Constitution, the second is the desirability and need for
compartmental reservation and the third is the ceiling on
reservation as placed by the Supreme Court.
"I think the debate on reservation must take into account
all these aspects and we must find ways and means by which
reservation can be used as an instrument to advance
affirmative action," he said.
Incidentally, Congress and the government has so far
remained ambivalent on the issue of implementation of the
Rangnath Misra Commission report.
PTI
