This circular carries reference number MuKa/13091045/2026 and is dated 11 August 2026, issued by the Chief Secretary of Karnataka, Dr Shalini Rajneesh, IAS. Since it is an office memorandum and not a gazette notification, it does not have a separate effective date. It takes effect from its date of issue, 11 August 2026, and gives District Collectors across the state one month to complete the exercise, which puts the working deadline around 11 September 2026.

Key highlights

Karnataka's Chief Secretary has ordered a fresh push to get every eligible workplace to form an Internal Committee under the POSH Act and register it on the government's SHe Box portal
Any government or private organization with 10 or more employees must legally have this committee in place to handle complaints of sexual harassment against women at work
The state has about 81,000 such organizations, and only around 26,000 of them, roughly one in three, have actually set up their committee and uploaded the details online
Even with that gap, Karnataka has registered more Internal Committees on the SHe Box portal than any other state, making it number one in the country on this count
The remaining 55,000 organizations have not formed a committee or uploaded their data yet, and this is what the Chief Secretary wants fixed
District Collectors in every district are now named District Nodal Officers, personally responsible for getting pending organizations in their district compliant
The full exercise, including the SHe Box upload, has to be completed within one month of this order
Once done, District Collectors must send a detailed report back confirming what action was taken
The order is routed through the Secretary of the Labour Department, Smt Salma K Fahima, IAS, so the Labour Department machinery at district level will be driving this on the ground

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Karnataka POSH Compliance Update 2026