Letters: Boon or bane?

This refers to the editorial "Licence Raj's last sigh" (April 16). One might agree with all the advantages of closure discussed in the editorial, but we need to remember that these reservations helped in creating a large section of the 46.7 million enterprises in the informal sector, which continues to employ over 110 million people. It was only appropriate that the items in the "reservation list" were pruned in a phased manner, which prepared the small-scale industries to be ready to face an onslaught of larger industries.

Historically, the self-reliant villages had artisans and craftsmen who served the society for centuries and this list, in a way, protected their jobs, skills and goods. If the purpose and consequence of the abolition of this list is to convert India into a backyard manufacturer of world's cheap goods like China or lead the country to mechanised jobless manufacturing, it will be a sad story.

The reservation, in a way, acted like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act; instead of dole, it helped the impoverished artisans to eke out a living. Still, it is the learning of family traditional skills that provides some work to the youth as the government's skill development efforts shall always fall short.

Y P Issar Karnal

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