“It has generally been argued that government's legislation is necessary to create a level playing field and define the guidelines and rules of responsible business so that no business is unduly penalized for behaving responsibly. Voluntary activity on behalf of the business over and above such legislative and regulatory requirements has been considered unnecessary by many.”

We agree that to create a level playing field, governments intervention is necessary but it makes a important point what the government does? Which ways it chooses?

Defining the guidelines and rules of a responsible business is definitely a part of governments duties, but the degree of their intervention into the business decisions which may touch the “profits” part is to be checked every time they try to introduce a policy for functioning of businesses.

What are or should to be the core purpose of the private sector and of government?

The core competence of a private Organization is making profit legitimately. If it cheats, by manipulating its accounts, or stock, or selling bad quality goods, or harming the environment, it should be punished by the government. For that is or should to be the primary purpose of the government, to govern and protect the interests of citizens against bad practices and exploitation. Today the government wants the private sector to take their job of providing social justice to people and provide reservations to socially backward people in the corporate world. This will damage the primary purpose of the Private organizations of making profits.

Even the Government has failed to provide social justice to people and we can see many examples if we try to see their world, many people still live in remote places in the mountains and forests where the basic amenities like water, medical help, hygienic food, connectivity etc are a distant dream. Government did reduce social evils like child marriage, girl child killing etc but could not stop it totally.

Many may say that the government as an entity is so large and its functions are so many that doing everything perfectly is an impossible task and it needs the private sector to do something on these issues. Because the private entities are well organized and much more efficient when compared to Government they could do much more on this front efficiently and effectively.

But forcing them to do certain things by imposing certain policies on the social welfare front on the is definitely not the way and if it affects the primary purpose of the business entities of making profits for the shareholders then this would be called as exploitation of the government. And the best example for this would be inclusion of reservation policy into corporate world.

“The government of India has been contemplating bringing in legislation that provides for reservation of jobs for the socially discrimated classes like SCs, STs, OBCs, BCs etc.. for the last few years. Everytime the government has raised this issue, industry associations like CII, ASSOCHAM, FICCI and captains of industry has vehemently opposed this move and sometimes proposed voluntary action.”

In suggesting the above policy of ‘merit’ versus ‘Reservation’, we think that an important aspect was not given importance, i.e. the primary purpose of the private sector.

Also when the government failed to provide social justice to people they tried to pass on the responsibilities to private sector.

Their logic was
 Businesses make profit so they should have social responsibility

But what they missed out was
 They already pay corporate taxes as part of their social responsibility, which the government should be using to provide civic amenities to citizens which also include social justice.

If the government now expects the private sector to do their job of providing basic things, then what is it that they will do?

Now let’s get to the inclusion of reservation policies in corporate system and also across professions.
 So now does government want professionals like doctors and lawyers also should follow reservation system in treating the patients and taking up cases respectively.
 What about people who represent private entity in the other fields like journalists, writers, academics and film-makers etc.

If issues like this are put into the hands of or forced onto the private sector then indirectly it would mean that the public sector is being privatized. Then it is not nationalization of many things related to the country but it would be privatization the country itself.

http://logtk.blogspot.in/2006/04/what-job-reservations-in-corporates.html