The Karnataka federal government on Friday informed the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025, presenting among the nation’s most detailed regulative structures for the gig economy.
The law mandates that aggregator platforms throughout sectors– from ride-hailing and food shipment to e-commerce, health care, and digital media– contribute a well-being charge of 1-5 percent of pay-outs per deal to money social security for gig employees.
The Act attends to social security, occupational health and wellness, openness in automated systems, and complaint redressal, and needs the development of a devoted Gig Workers Welfare Board, headquartered in Bengaluru.
The Board will be chaired by the state labour minister and consist of authorities from the labour, IT, and business taxes departments, together with agents of gig employees, aggregators, civil society, and technical specialists.
Every gig employee onboarded by a platform will be signed up with the board and released a special ID, making it possible for access to social security plans, minimum payment cycles, and safeguards versus approximate termination.
The law likewise caps administrative expenditures of the well-being fund at 5 percent of the overall corpus, making sure most contributions circulation straight to employees’ advantages.
The structure uses to a wide variety of services consisting of ride-sharing, logistics, food and grocery shipment, B2B and B2C e-commerce, travel and hospitality, health care, and digital material platforms.
The law sets out clear guidelines for agreements, needing platforms to preserve openness on payments, reductions, and rewards, while promoting the employee’s right to decline jobs.
Platforms need to reveal information of algorithmic tracking and decision-making systems in easy terms, supply a human point of contact, and guarantee fundamental working conditions such as rest breaks and access to centers.
A two-tier complaint system has actually likewise been set out: Internal Dispute Resolution Committees within platforms, followed by escalation to the Board. Non-compliance will welcome charges of approximately 1 lakh for duplicated infractions, while aggregators should submit quarterly go back to show compliance.
By institutionalising gig employee rights and mandating contributions from platforms, Karnataka has actually ended up being the very first state to press through a thorough social security web for platform-based employees, a relocation that is most likely to be carefully tracked by other states and the Centre.
Released on September 13, 2025
