Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday promised to bring out legislation to implement recommendations of the five-member expert panel that has revised the 30-year-old Dr. Sarojini Mahishi Committee report on providing jobs for Kannadigas, after discussing the issue in the Cabinet and also with legal experts.

The chief minister, who headed the Kannada Kavalu Samiti earlier, underlined the need for reservation for locals and primacy for regional language in private sector at a time when reservation, a Constitutional right, is losing its relevance in the government sector.

The 80-page three-part report has made 14 recommendations to the State government and seven to the Centre demanding 80 reservations for local people in non-officer cadre in government and private sector undertakings, including the IT and biotechnology sector. It also stresses on formulation of a national employment policy to protect the interest of locals in the federal structure. Attributing failure to implement the report to not getting legal and constitutional sanctity, former chairpersons of Kannada Development Authority Mukhyamantri Chandru and L. Hanumanthaiah, and present chairperson S.G. Siddaramaiah demanded that legislation be passed to protect the interest of Kannadigas.

The KDA chairperson said the need for revisiting the three-decade-old recommendations of the committee arose as IT-BT and startups were non-existent when the panel submitted suggestions in the 80s.