BENGALURU: The Karnataka cabinet on Friday approved ‘The Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2025. It comes on the heels of a ministerial delegation led by Chief Minister Siddarmaiah and comprising Labour Minister Santhosh Lad, IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge and Industries Minister MB Patil holding a discussion with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi recently.
The government plans to bring in an Act through an ordinance to ensure the setting up of a welfare board for gig workers, in line with the welfare board for construction workers. Rahul Gandhi had, during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, made a promise to gig workers in this regard.
The objectives include constituting a welfare board, placing obligations on aggregators/platforms in relation to social security, occupational health and safety, transparency in automated monitoring and decision-making systems, providing dispute resolution mechanisms, registering platform-based gig aggregators/platforms in the State, and establishing a fund for financing schemes to provide social security and welfare for platform-based gig workers.
Within six months of the Act coming into force, the state government is entitled to collect a gig workers’ welfare fee from an aggregator/platform, which shall be not less than 1 per cent but not more than 5 per cent of the payout to the platform-based gig worker in each transaction. Contravention of the Act would attract a penalty of up to Rs 5,000 and up to Rs 1 lakh for the subsequent one.
Services provided by aggregators coming under the ambit are ride sharing, food and grocery delivery, logistics, e-marketplace (both marketplace and inventory model) for wholesale/retail sale of goods and/or services, Business to Business/Business to Consumer (B2B/B2C), professional activity provider, healthcare, travel and hospitality and content and media services.