The State government is reading to table the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill in the upcoming monsoon session of the legislature.
| Photo Credit: File photo
As the government readies to table the Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill in the upcoming monsoon session of the legislature, industry bodies have raised concerns and sought more time before passing the Bill.
Nasscom, which represents tech companies in India, has written to the Chief Minister saying that the Bill proposes a parallel structure of social security law for platform gig workers, duplicating the Code on Social Security – 2020 (CoSS) passed by the Union government.
Once the CoSS is notified and the State Bill goes through, it raises the possibility of dual levy on aggregators, the industry body said in its letter.
Dual levy concerns
The CoSS has provisions that mandate aggregator companies to contribute between 1-2% of their annual turnover to the Central government’s social security fund for gig workers. The draft Bill by the Karnataka government too proposes charging a welfare fee, either on every transaction or on the overall turnover of the aggregators.
In its submission to the State government, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has noted that once the CoSS and the draft Bill come into force, it would result in a dual levy that would place excessive financial burden on aggregator companies, many of which are already operating on loss.
‘No clarity’
Another concern raised by the industry bodies is the lack of clear guidelines on the usage of the welfare fee.
“The Bill does not contain safeguards to ensure the funds collected from platforms are spent in a time-bound manner and only for sponsoring social security schemes designed for gig platform workers in the State of Karnataka,” said the Nasscom letter which pointed out that this is a serious gap not only from the industry perspective but also from the gig workers’ perspective.
It also alleges that the draft Bill does not provide certainty on how the fee would be collected.
“It is left to the discretion of the executive. Similarly, the Bill leaves the percentage to be decided through executive notifications. The Bill gives an option to the department to levy the fee as a percentage of the turnover of the platform in the State, without any upper cap on this. This will lead to uncertainty and appears to be excessive delegation,” the letter stated.
‘Onerous, governmental overreach’
The industry bodies also termed aggregator obligations such as minimum notice period for termination, data disclosures, and laying down terms of template contracts with platform gig workers proposed in the draft Bill as “onerous”, “prescriptive” and “unnecessary intervention”.
“Direct government intervention in these contractual arrangements is both unnecessary and potentially harmful,” said the IAMAI letter which also noted that sharing of data that is proprietary information of the aggregators may impact the competitive aspects of aggregators’ businesses and raise concerns under the data privacy laws.
The organisations have sought an extended consultation period instead of the 10 days provided currently.
