It’s getting dark, too dark, for techies in India’s snazzy Silicon Valley to see a life beyond logged in.

Karnataka’s plan to slap a 10-hour work regime that can be extended up to 12 hours a day has flared up fresh controversies with the IT professionals slamming it as modern day slavery. If theory calls it a way to ramp up productivity, then reality describes it as a blow to the fragile work-life balance of the employees.

“There’s a big difference between working for long hours occasionally and being told to do so every day,” said Shruti, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, refusing to be identified by the full name. “If this becomes mandatory, it will be exhausting, not empowering.”

In India’s rush to outshine peer economies, is the ease of doing business causing major unease among the workforce, souring its demographic sweet spot?

Karnataka, which is governed by the BJP that leads the ruling coalition at the Centre, followed neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP’s alliance partner TDP thrashed out a 10-hour mandatory work schedule for IT employees just a week back.

The developments come close on the heels of India beating Japan to be the fourth-largest economy in the world, although Japan’s per-capita income of $33,955 continued to remain 12 times that of $2,878 for an average Indian, an IMF report showed.

“When you work extra, your income will rise,” Andhra Pradesh information and public relations minister K Parthasarathy said after the state extended the work hours.

Policy Conundrum Stirs Up A Hornet’s Nest

Andhra and Karnataka are not the first to propose longer working hours. The Union labour ministry had in the Draft Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Codes, 2020, proposed that the maximum hours of working in a day be fixed at 12, but it had capped the weekly schedule at 48 hours. It received a lot of criticism because Parliament had passed a limit of eight hours of work per day.

In the draft amendment to the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961, floated on June 19, the state labour department proposed to extend the work day from nine to 10 hours, keeping the 48-hour weekly limit in place, but added that the top daily hours that can be worked, including overtime, would extend up to 12 hours from 10. It also raised the overtime cap from 50 hours to 144 hours over a three-month period.

The amendment will be imposed on industries such as IT and IT-enabled services, restaurants, hotels, pubs, bars, and offices that fall under the Factories Act, essentially covering the core of Karnataka’s commercial workforce. It also proposed to exempt smaller enterprises with less than 10 employees.

For the government, the move is being framed as pro-business, aimed at providing operational flexibility and drawing investments. “These changes are intended to make Karnataka a more competitive location for businesses to expand,” a labour department spokesperson reasoned.

But the workforce is not buying it. “We’re already overworked with deadlines and meetings running over into nights. What are we trying to prove by putting in one extra hour?” wondered Debayan Bose, a software engineer at IBM.

He wasn’t alone. The proposal has attracted the wrath of........

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