Tamil Nadu to Subsidise E-Scooter Purchases by Some Gig Workers

India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu will provide a subsidy of Rs. 20,000 to pick out gig employees to purchase e-scooters, a minister stated on Friday, as extra younger folks enroll with on-line platforms to ship meals and groceries.

Gig employees, or these outdoors conventional employer-employee relationships, are set to play a key function on this planet’s fifth-biggest financial system, spurred partly by excessive unemployment after COVID-19 pandemic curbs fuelled progress within the sector.

Tamil Nadu can also be introducing an insurance coverage scheme for practically 150,000 gig employees to compensate for unintended deaths and incapacity, its finance minister, Thangam Thenarasu, stated whereas unveiling the funds.

“A new scheme will be launched …. to provide a subsidy of Rs. 20,000 each to 2,000 internet-based service workers to buy a new e-scooter,” the minister stated, including that employees registered with a state welfare physique can be eligible.

Further particulars of the scheme will likely be revealed later, Labour Secretary Veera Raghava Rao informed Reuters.

The costs of electrical scooter maker Ola’s merchandise begin at Rs. 79,999, whereas these of rival Ather promote from Rs. 99,999.

The state may even arrange lounges for the usage of such employees in massive cities, resembling Chennai, its capital – the place summer season temperatures usually exceed 40 levels Celsius (104 levels F) – and Coimbatore, a textile hub.

The head of the Tamil Nadu Food and Allied Products Delivery Workers Union, Okay.C. Gopikumar, welcomed the subsidy and welfare efforts however urged the federal government to increase them to extra employees in addition to give them higher situations, resembling paid depart.

Swiggy and Zomato, two of India’s largest supply suppliers, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

© Thomson Reuters 2025