Industry leaders on Saturday informed the government they were dead against any legislation on reservation in the private sector but were ready to enhance their commitment to provide jobs and education to the SCs/STs.

In their meeting with principal secretary to prime minister T K A Nair, presidents and past presidents of the three apex chambers said voluntary action would yield better results than an Act of Parliament.

"The discussion revolved around affirmative action and the government did not press for reservation either," president of the Confederation of Indian Industry Sunil Bharati Mittal told reporters. Industry has maintained this stand all along.

Assocham president V N Dhoot said the industry has already begun work on improving the employability of the SCs/STs. "We have created a corpus of Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) for skill upgradation of SCs/STs,"he said.

The chamber heads asked the government to provide fiscal incentives to the industry in 40-45 districts dominated by the SCs/STs.

K K Modi, former president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said his chamber has resolved differences with the CII and Assocham on the issue of providing SC/ST employment data in the company annual reports.

"We have convinced FICCI to work together," Dhoot said.

The meeting was convened by Nair, who is also the chairman of the Coordination Committee on Affirmative Action including reservation, which monitors specific results achieved by the private sector. The committee would meet again after two months to review work on fresh promises.

In the earlier two meetings of the coordination committee, it was suggested that a positive discrimination in recruitment of SCs and STs should be followed.

Mittal said against the commitment of 100 SC/STs to start their business, CII has generated 345 entrepreneurs among them. Besides, 50 scholarships have been given to people from these classes.

He said CII would focus on education, employability and entrepreneurship for SC/STs.

Likewise, FICCI said it would set up 50 industrial training institutes this year, besides training 5000 graduates from these castes.