Karnataka budget: Gig workers to have Rs 4 lakh insurance cover

The state will pay the entire premium for the scheme under which workers will get a life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh and accidental cover of Rs 2 lakh, chief minister Siddaramaiah said while presenting the state budget.

While the budget allotment is a welcome move, the state government should build a social security framework in the lines of Rajasthan’s new gig workers Bill to help workers on aggregator platforms, Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers general secretary Shaik Salauddin told ET.

The Congress regime in Rajasthan recently proposed a Bill that would make aggregators register all their gig workers on a government platform. The social security schemes for the workers will be financed by a fee on every transaction generated on the aggregator platforms, which means the workers will earn their social security through their own value generated for the platform.

Apart from these provisions, the state should create a centralised tracking and management system that would function as a unified portal for all financial transactions taking place on the aggregator’s digital platform, said Salauddin. “The government should create a law so that all these provisions are legally enforceable,” he said.

The United Food Delivery Partners’ Union said the community’s expectations have not been totally fulfilled despite the insurance cover allocation in the budget. “There is an urgent need to enact a law to end the gross exploitation and injustice going on in the sector,” said its president Vinaysara QV.

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Tech startups and investors’ industry association IndiaTech CEO Rameesh Kailasam called it a triplication of effort. “In case of gig workers, platforms already cover accident and health insurance. The Centre launched an eShram portal to enrol gig and unorganised sector workers last year,” he told ET.Issues like who exactly can enrol and how and migrant gig workers not having permanent domicile are issues states will have to contend with to identify beneficiaries. The state and the Centre, he said, should work in tandem to avoid policy overlap.

In its manifesto before the assembly polls in May, the Congress party had promised to set up a gig workers’ welfare board with a seed fund of Rs 3,000 crore and to ensure minimum hourly wage for workers in the unorganised sector.

Bengaluru itself has more than 200,000 gig workers in Dunzo, Swiggy, Blinkit, and other delivery platforms. Last year, gig workers from Dunzo protested in the city when the platform introduced an incentive-based model of payment for its delivery agents. The move had effectively slashed workers’ per-delivery payments.