Karnataka’s ‘Gig’ Budget Move: Rs 4-Lakh Insurance for E-Commerce Workers | Bharat Jodo Impact

When gig workers in Bengaluru shared their experiences and travails with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over a steaming hot cup of coffee and dosa, the message hit home. Karnataka Chief Minister (CM) Siddaramaiah, who presented his 14th budget, has announced that his government will provide social security to ‘gig workers’ in the unorganised sector.

The state government has promised to bear the premium for insurance facility of Rs 4 lakh, including Rs 2 lakh as life insurance and another Rs 2 lakh as accident insurance, to full-time/ part-time delivery personnel employed with e-commerce companies such as Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, etc.

Siddaramaiah said that the inefficient management of the Covid-19 pandemic by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government had caused immense hardship to the labour class.

“Our government honours every sweat of hard work and will make every effort to promote health and welfare of the working class by creating a labour friendly atmosphere,” the CM said.

THE RAJASTHAN EXAMPLE

Karnataka also seems to have taken a leaf out of the Ashok Gehlot-run Rajasthan government, who had announced the Platform Base Gig workers (Registration and Welfare) Bill this year. During Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, the leader had spent considerable time with gig workers and hitching rides on their two-wheeler to get a sense of their hardships.

Just before the Karnataka elections were conducted in May this year, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) had highlighted the working environment of delivery workers as well as the lack of stability in their employment and need for a comprehensive bill that gives them social and financial security.

Over 2,00,000 people are employed as gig workers in Bengaluru alone and they made an appeal to political parties to help resolve issues such as inflation, risk of life while driving to deliver good within a stipulated time as well as lack of basic insurance for their families.

In a media interaction by IFAT, they had stressed that states like Karnataka that pride itself in being called the ‘startup hub’ in the country, should set an example by protecting its gig workers by ensuring basic fiscal securities to workers such as government funds. They had also sought to set up a Gig Workers’ Welfare Board with a corpus of Rs 3,000 crore and minimum hourly wages for these gig workers.

The former labour minister in the previous BJP government, Shivram Hebbar, had also spoken of their government mulling to bring out a policy which entailed benefits such as weekly-offs, Employee’s State Insurance (ESI) and Provident Fund and health insurance to those working in the unorganised sector. At present, gig workers are treated as temporary workers and paid per delivery or per trip. They also need to bear the cost of fuel for their rides during the delivery services on their own.