Contract labour

When it applies

Twenty or more workmen employed as contract labour on any day of the preceding twelve months — section 1(4). The same count applies to the contractor.

Who does what

The principal employer registers the establishment under section 7; the contractor takes a licence under section 12.

Where the money goes

Into the local treasury, under head “087 Labour and Employment-5. Other Receipts-V Fees under Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Karnataka Rules, 1974” — rule 38.

Amending a registration certificate

The 1974 rules set ₹25 per change for amending a registration certificate — rule 26(3), which the 2024 amendment did not touch. The department's checklist says ₹200.

Transferring one

The holder may apply to the Registering Officer before the certificate expires; if he approves, he endorses the transfer on the certificate under his signature — rule 26(4), which sets ₹25.

Replacing a lost one

₹25 under rule 26(5), where the registration certificate is lost or accidentally destroyed — a figure the 2024 amendment did not touch.

Security deposit

Paid into the local treasury under head “843 Civil Deposits Section T—Deposits and Advances—Part II Deposits not bearing interest—(c) Deposits under Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (State)” — rule 24(2). How much, and when, follows the Central Rule.

Canteens

Where the contractor arranges with the principal employer that the canteens the principal employer must keep under the Factories Act, 1948 are made available to the contractor's workmen, that is deemed due compliance — rule 40(3).

Notices

Rates of wages and hours of work are displayed in English and Kannada — the heading of rule 81.

Fees Karnataka sets for itself

Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Karnataka) (Amendment) Rules, 2024 — Notification No. LD 219 LET 2023 of 29 November 2024, printed in the Karnataka Gazette Part 4A, Volume 160, Issue 01, of 1 January 2025. It substitutes the columns and rows of rule 26(1) and 26(2) outright, and rule 32(6) and 32(7) with them.

Registration of the establishment under section 7, rule 26(1) — by the number of workmen proposed to be employed on contract on any day.

Up to 20 workmen

₹1,688

21 to 50

₹2,700

51 to 100

₹4,388

101 to 200

₹5,400

201 to 400

₹8,100

401 to 500

₹10,125

above 500

₹13,500

The contractor’s licence under section 12, rule 26(2) — by the number of workmen the contractor employs on any day. Security deposit: ₹68 per employee — rule 26(2)(h) as substituted in 2024.

Up to 20 workmen

₹1,013

21 to 50

₹2,025

51 to 100

₹3,038

101 to 200

₹4,050

201 to 400

₹6,750

401 to 500

₹9,450

above 500

₹13,500

Three fee scales are in circulation

The Rules as the department publishes them still print the 1974 scale — ₹150 to ₹3,750 for registration, ₹100 to ₹1,250 for the licence, ₹25 to amend. Those are not current.

The department's own online-services checklist prints a third set again — ₹1,250 to ₹10,000 for registration, ₹750 to ₹10,000 for the licence, ₹200 to amend, ₹50 security. Every one of those figures is exactly the 2025 figure divided by 1.35, so the checklist is the schedule the 2024 amendment raised by thirty-five per cent, and has not been updated since.

Only the figures above are current. The others are shown because a reader who has seen the department’s own Rules copy or its checklist will otherwise think this page is wrong.

What these rules do not write out

Most of these rules are not written out. Sixty-one of the eighty-three read “[Same as Central Rule N.]”. Including the ones an employer reaches for: making the registration application (17), the grant of the certificate (18), rejection (19), amendment (20), the licence application (21), forms and terms (25), validity (27), amendment of the licence (28) and renewal (29).

Two footnoted substitutions make those read as Karnataka's: for “Central Government” read “Government”, and for “Chief Labour Commissioner (Central)” read “Commissioner of Labour”.

Rule 32, on a temporary certificate of registration and licence, cross-refers to the Andhra Pradesh Rules rather than the Central Rules.

The copy this rests on is the Labour Department's own typeset compilation, which cites Karnataka Gazette Extraordinary No. 3644 of 9-12-1974 as its source. That gazette has not been seen. So this desk does not say whether the square-bracket cross-references are how the rules were gazetted or how this copy renders them — only that they are what the State publishes today.

From the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Karnataka Rules, 1974 and the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (Act 37 of 1970), both as published by the Karnataka Labour Department.