Former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha .

PATNA: Former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Friday favoured reservation in private sector jobs and also pitched for increasing the quota slab from the existing 50% to higher side in government jobs.

Sinha, who in 2002 introduced corporate social responsibility (CSR), said, “If the corporates have any objection to it, they should spell out the reasons for that.”

He said the Centre should constitute a commission to study and assess the transformation that had occurred due to application of job reservation in government sector, apart from pointing to the shortcomings in the implementation of the quota policy, including for the scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and other backward class (OBC) people.

“Now even the Centre has also started talking about reservation for the extremely backward classes (EBCs). It means that there was some problem with the implementation of the quota policy,” Sinha said.

Addressing a function organized here by Vanchit Varg Morcha (VVM) headed by former Bihar assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary, Sinha said, “The growth of economy is a must for reaching out benefits to weaker sections, but the recent developments have also impacted people negatively. The demonetisation done last year not only led to fall in the GDP growth rate, but also resulted in loss of 20 lakh jobs.”

VVM, in principle, stands as umbrella organization for the deprived sections of the society.

Earlier, Choudhary described the grim conditions facing the deprived sections, like homelessness, increase in atrocities on dalits, their preponderance among jail inmates, incidents of rape, abolition of scholarship for students, introduction of credit card for loans from banks for higher studies, annulment of reservation in promotion, backlogs of unfilled reserved posts, lack of reservation in judiciary. He assailed the policies pursued by PM Narendra Modi .

Choudhary, who is still in the JD(U) and has fallen out with its president cum state CM Nitish Kumar , also assailed Nitish for his belated announcement of quota in outsourced jobs, even as the law regarding it had been existing since 1993.

In the same vein, he criticised the death of children in the government hospitals for want of oxygen in Uttar Pradesh where, he said, Rs500 crore was spent on the celebration of Ram and Sita. “In their eyes, human lives have no value,” he said.

Sinha had been principal secretary to former Bihar CM Karpoori Thakur, a popular leader from an EBC group. He asked Choudhary to gather together intellectuals, including Sachindra Narayan, who also addressed the function, to prepare a white paper on the condition of weaker/deprived sections.

