Karnataka Minimum Wage Hike: Unskilled Workers in Bengaluru to Get ₹23,376,

By Bangalore Mail Political Bureau

Bengaluru: In a major policy move aimed at providing economic relief to millions of laborers, the Karnataka government has officially notified a sweeping revision of minimum wages across both organized and unorganized sectors. Under the new guidelines issued late Friday night by the Labour Department, an unskilled worker in the Greater Bengaluru Area (GBA) must now be paid a mandatory minimum wage of ₹23,376 per month.

The extensive wage revision, which marks a massive 60% hike from existing benchmarks, has been hailed by the ruling administration as a historic victory for labor welfare. However, it has simultaneously triggered strong backlash from the state’s business and industrial sectors, with employer associations branding the move “legally invalid.”

Substantial Wage Hikes Across Skill Categories

The new notification divides workers into four distinct tiers based on their skill levels: highly skilled, skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled.

For the state capital of Bengaluru (classified under Zone-1), the revised monthly wages are fixed as follows:

• Highly Skilled Workers: ₹31,114 per month

• Unskilled Workers: ₹23,376 per month

Outside the Greater Bengaluru Area, the rates fluctuate based on geographical classification. In Zone-2 (encompassing all district centers and city corporations) and Zone-3 (all remaining regions), the minimum wage for unskilled employment will now range between ₹19,300 and ₹21,251 per month. Previously, the baseline minimum wage for unskilled workers in Karnataka hovered around the ₹15,000 mark.

Announcing the decision, State Labour Minister Santosh Lad stated that the government has fulfilled a long-standing grievance of the working class. “We have fulfilled a long-pending demand of the state’s labourers. This historic 60% revision will offer robust economic security to workers in unorganized and specified sectors,” Minister Lad stated, noting that the hike relies on the landmark Supreme Court judgment in the Reptakos Brett case, which mandates evaluating minimum wages through the lens of basic costs for food, education, clothing, and healthcare.

Cabinet Friction and Internal Pushback

The implementation of the revised wages follows more than a year of intense internal deliberation. High-level political sources indicate that the draft notification faced significant resistance from within the state Cabinet itself. Several ministers reportedly voiced concerns that imposing a steep 60% salary increase concurrently could cripple small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and deter future industrial investments in Karnataka.

Despite internal friction and extensive corporate lobbying, the political bureau reports that the government ultimately moved ahead with the final notification, aiming to benefit an estimated two crore workers across 81 scheduled employments.

Employers Prepare for a Legal Battle

The corporate sector has reacted with sharp apprehension. The Karnataka Employers’ Association (KEA) has publicly challenged the state government’s authority to execute this order, claiming the final notification is ridden with “legal infirmities.”

According to KEA President B.C. Prabhakar, the state government issued the notification under the traditional Minimum Wages Act—a framework he argues has lost its legal mandate. “The Minimum Wages Act was effectively repealed by the implementation of the central Code on Wages, which kicked in from November 2025. Therefore, this notification is without the authority of law,” Prabhakar stated. He added that the federal Code on Wages has already abolished the older framework of ‘Scheduled Employments.’

Furthermore, the KEA asserted that the notification acts in direct violation of an active High Court order, which dictated that no decisions passed by the state’s minimum wage advisory board could be implemented until further judicial hearings.

With the government standing firm on its pro-labor mandate and industries declaring the policy legally void, the stage is set for an intense legal and political showdown in the capital.