Rahul Gandhi launches Telangana gig workers law in Hyderabad, announces ₹5 lakh accident and ₹10 lakh health cover

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched the working of Telangana’s gig workers law in Hyderabad, promising every registered platform worker ₹5 lakh in accident insurance and ₹10 lakh in health insurance. He did it alongside Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy at Jayabheri Grounds near the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, after a bike rally in which both men rode pillion on delivery workers’ two-wheelers.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha told the crowd of delivery executives, cab drivers and other app-based workers that the law keeps a promise. “Today, we are fulfilling the promise made to you,” he said. He called gig workers the “foundation of the economy” and “partners in progress”, and said the Congress stands with them.

What was announced

The event was the formal start of the Telangana Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration, Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2026. The Assembly passed the Bill on March 30, and the Act received the Governor’s assent on April 25 and was published in the state gazette on April 28. It has been in force since June 2. Guidelines under it were released at the launch.

The benefits Gandhi announced were these:

• ₹5 lakh accident insurance and ₹10 lakh health insurance for gig workers.
• A 1% share of every transaction, whether an Uber ride or a Blinkit delivery, to be paid by the platform company. The Gig Workers Board is to credit it to the worker’s bank account.
• Pension and financial security, with no amount given.
• Access to a worker’s own data: every ride, delivery, payment and earning on the worker’s phone. “When the work is yours and the data is yours, the full right to it should be yours,” Gandhi said.
• Wi-Fi-enabled rest zones, called Gig Stops, in every Telangana city. The government says five are already operating, with seating, charging points, separate washrooms, bunk-bed rest areas and parking.

What the law says

The Act, a copy of which is published by PRS Legislative Research, sets up a Gig Workers Board headquartered in Hyderabad, chaired by the state’s Labour Minister. Besides senior officials of the Labour, IT, Finance, Commercial Taxes and Transport departments, the Government nominates four gig worker representatives, four platform representatives and two members of civil society, with at least one woman in each group.

Platforms, which the Act calls aggregators, had to register with the Board within 45 days of the Act coming into force and hand over their databases of workers. Each worker gets one unique ID that works across platforms, so that a rider who works for two apps is counted once.

Disputes are handled by a Grievance Redressal Officer, who must give an order within 30 days. Platforms with at least 100 registered workers must run an internal dispute committee. Appeals go to an Appellate Authority within 90 days. Late payment of the welfare fee draws fines of ₹50,000 for a first lapse, ₹1 lakh for a second and ₹1.5 lakh for a third, and up to five times the fee due after that.

The Act itself does not fix the fee. It leaves the rate to a government notification, and the March report of the Assembly debate spoke of a levy of 1 to 2% on transactions. The 1% announced on Saturday is the first figure put to the workers themselves.

How we got here

Revanth Reddy recalled that the Congress leader made the promise to gig workers during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The law was also a Congress poll promise before the 2023 Assembly elections. In December 2023 the Chief Minister announced the ₹5 lakh accident cover, and said the health cover would come through the Rajiv Arogyasri scheme.

A draft was prepared by the Labour Department in April 2025, when the government said it hoped to pass the law by May Day. It took another year, and a public comment round, to reach the statute book. Revanth Reddy said Saturday that the law “was not prepared by sitting within four walls”. He said it drew on consultations with gig workers, their unions, experts from the IITs and IIIT Bangalore, and specialists in governance.

Politics on the stage

The launch came on the last day of the second Bharat Summit, a three-day gathering of progressive leaders from about 70 countries that the Telangana government is hosting in Hyderabad. Gandhi was due to speak at its closing session later on Saturday on India’s foreign policy.

At the gig workers’ meeting he turned to national politics. He said the policies of the Centre favour companies over workers, and accused the BJP and RSS of backing big industrialists such as Adani and Ambani while treating workers like “bonded labourers”. The remarks are his own claim; no response from the BJP was available at the time of writing.

Also on stage were Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka, Labour Minister G Vivek Venkataswamy, who piloted the Bill through the Assembly, Telangana Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, and Ministers D Sridhar Babu and Ponnam Prabhakar.

Why it matters

Telangana is among the first states to write a gig workers’ welfare scheme into law with a dedicated board and a fee on every transaction. How many people it will cover is not settled. Labour Minister Venkataswamy put the state’s gig economy at around six lakh people on Saturday, while a government estimate from April 2025 spoke of nearly four lakh across food delivery, cab driving and package delivery.

For a rider, the practical test is simple: whether the insurance pays out after a crash on a wet road, and whether the 1% share shows up in a bank account. Both depend on registration, and on rules that, according to one account of the event, still have to be notified in full.

What happens next

Workers must be enrolled and issued their IDs before cover can start, which depends on platforms having registered with the Board and shared their worker data. The notified rules will settle how the 1% is collected and what share of it reaches each worker. The Board, described as launched at the event, will have to begin its work, and the Gig Stops are to be extended beyond the five now working.