Contexts
The recent announcement of extending the social security net towards the gig and platform workers by the Union Minister for Labour and Employment (L&E) on a national scale is the latest in a series of regulatory interventions on platform-gig economy by Indian authorities, initiated since the Code on Social Security, 2020, with many state governments following suit (Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2024).
The public discourse in India regarding platform and gig economy regulations has mostly been conducted with an inadvertent focus on their implications for the recognition of the platform and gig workers as ‘workers’ within the industrial and labour jurisprudence (Khan & Sapkal, 2023; Shipra, 2024; Bhatia, 2023). Such a hard bound relationship between social security and formalization of the workforce seldom allows social security to be studied in its own right. Insofar as such regulations are the minutiae of India’s commitment to a welfare state, an analysis of social security frameworks in their own right may shed light on the various regimes of governmentality in post-independence Indian history (Foucault, 2009). This may also be crucial to sifting through the conceptual and methodological ambiguity of the discourse of (in)formality of the Indian economy, which continues to riddle many within the public sphere (Jha, 2016, pp. 36-7).
More immediately, however, the recent announcement and the incumbent deliberations on the governance framework for implementing the social security regulations provides an opportune moment to recapitulate the history of employment-based social security legislations in India (Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2024; Ministry of Labour & Employment, 2024a).
A Tentative Typology of Social Security Frameworks in India
Analytically speaking, the difference between the formal or organized sector and informal or unorganized sector employment in India is best understood as a spectrum of rights that the workers engaged therein enjoy (Jha, 2016; Mitchell, Mahy, & Gahan, 2014). On the one hand, this spectrum involves right to social security, such as provident funds, occupational safety and health insurances, industrial lock-out victim benefits, maternity benefits, gratuity, etc., and on the other hand, the right to representation, collective bargaining and security against flexible contracts.
Relatedly, social security, in itself, entails a host of schemes, policies and legislations covering the poor, women, children, the elderly, the differently abled, those afflicted with food insecurity or those who face barriers to participate or enjoy equal opportunities for growth in the economy, amongst others. However, for the purposes of this article, we will be considering only those social security initiatives whose loci are employer-employee relations, directly, and those which acknowledge the power differentials within this, inclined towards the protection of the employee (Rahman & Pingali, 2024). Simply speaking, this article covers those social security initiatives which cover the life-cycle of the workers, excluding the entry of individuals within the workforce. These are called employment-based social security legislations, hereby.
Historically, we may note three regimes of employment-based social security initiatives in India—the first phase covering the formal or organized sector immediately in the post-independence period, epitomized by legislations such as Employees’ State Insurance Act of 1948 (ESI), Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act of 1952 (EPF); then, the second phase targeting the informal or unorganized sector workers, epitomized in the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act of 1996 (BOCW), the Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act of 2008 (UWSS); and finally, the recent gig-workers social security initiatives represented in the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act of 2023 (RGW) and the draft Code on Social Security, 2020 (CoSS)[7]. This categorization has been arrived at by reading the bare acts symptomatically through aspects of accessibility and regulatory onus, financing, administrative structure and benefits.
Accessibility and Regulatory Onus
One of the most notably important differences in the three phases of social security regimes pertains to the question of “registration” of workers, which has a substantial bearing on the ease of access by the workers. Thus, in the first phase, in acts such as ESI and EPF, the regulatory onus lay on the ‘establishments’ and, by proxy, the employers, to register their workers, defaulting which the employers were liable for penalty (The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, p. Chapter 1; The Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, p. Chapter 1). The registration and entitlements of the workers is a ‘trickle-down’ process.
In contrast stands the second phase of social security legislations like BOCW, UWSS and MDWWB, where the provisions for the workers to register themselves through the government instituted welfare boards was introduced. Whereas in the BOCW, both the workers and the establishments or employers are to be registered (The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, Chapter 3 & 4), the latter is dropped in the case of USWW and MDWWB acts, where the workers would register themselves directly with the welfare boards (The Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, § 10; Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act, 2008, § 12).
In the newest phase of the social security initiatives, curiously, the registration onus has again been reversed and put back on the ‘aggregators’ as employers (The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, Chapter 3; Ministry of L&E, 2024).
Financing
Another pivot of differences to be noted in the three regimes pertains to the financing of the affairs of the schemes, such as benefits, subsidies, administrative, and infrastructure costs, etc. Whereas the schemes of the first phase were financed predominantly by the contributions of the employees and the employers, wherein the employers paid either equal to or more than the contributions of the employees (The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, § 26; The Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, § 6), the second phase was marked by predominance of fiscal financing through grants and loans by the various governments and contributions of the employees (The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, § 23; The Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, § 4; Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act, 2008, § 15).
In the third phase, symptomized by the RGW act of 2023, the financing of the schemes has foregone the contributions by the employee and instead, incorporated fiscal financing and a welfare fee payable by the employee (but also levied on the ‘consumers’), which is a certain proportion of the order value generated on the platforms (The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, Chapter 4). Keeping in sync with the Niti Aayogs recommendation to allow for “augmentation of social security through innovative financing mechanisms” (2022, p. 7), this marks a shift in public finance mechanisms of social security schemes.
Administrative Mechanism
One of the starkest differences between the first and the later regimes pertains to their administration. Whereas the first regime entailed legislative scheme centredness which led to the mushrooming of administrative bodies responsible for the functioning of the specific schemes only (The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, Chapter 2; India, 1952, Chapter 5), the trend since the second phase has been of an overarching ‘welfare board’ that oversees a host of schemes and benefits (The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, Chapter 2 & 5; The Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, Chapter 4; Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act, 2008, § 3; The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, § 3).
Relatedly, there are similarities across all the regimes pertaining to the provincialization or decentralization of administration for last-mile delivery and the tripartite constitution of administration through nominations. Whereas the latter also appears to be the tendency in the third phase, the former—i.e. decentralization and last-mile delivery of services—is also being operationalized through digital and technological innovations (The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, Chapter 8).
Benefits
It has been noted by several commentators that the later regimes of social security in India have moved from a rights-based approach to a welfare-based approach (Migration and Asylum Project, 2022, pp. 66-7). Thus, again, one of the starkest shifts have been that whereas legislations from the earlier phases established occupational safety and health, maternity benefits, unemployment coverage, etc. as substantive of fundamental rights, the later phases have progressively hinged on the function of the welfare boards to “ensure access to the benefits and schemes formulated by the state government” (The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, § 5 (f)).
This, however, must be subjected to enquiry, for though one may interpret these as ‘diluting’ the rights-based approach, there has clearly been a wider basket of benefits available. Thus, the later regimes have also incorporated family welfare, housing, education loans for children, funeral expenses, skill development, etc. apart from the medical and old-age insurances and maternity benefits (India, 2008, Schedule 1) Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act, 2008, § 10). The recent spate of social security initiatives, epitomized by the focus on gig and platform workers, are also contemplating ease of access to finance by the workers for economic upward mobility (Niti Aayog, 2022, pp. 4-5).
Conclusion
Analytics aside, the ongoing design process of the social security framework best suited to the platform-based gig economy in India is testament to the changing terrain of increasingly complex industrial relations in India. At stake is the very validity of the traditional tripartite model of industrial relations and a push for creative solutions.
On the one hand, backsliding towards the first regime of employment-based social security framework (as is suggested from the mode of registration and regulatory onus) raises many concerns. Representatives such as All-India Organization of Employees have rightfully pointed out issues including the de-linking of value of social security benefits and the participation of platform and gig workers, such as hours or participation and earnings per gig, or the disproportionate financial burden on some ‘employer-aggregators’. The fact that, in this sector, the ‘turnover is a function of various factors unrelated to the workers’, has also been highlighted (All India Organization of Employees, FICCI, 2025). Imagine a worker engaged with more than one platform in a day or the pricing volatilities of these platforms!
On the other hand, if there is a move towards inadequate coverage or entitlements, it is safe to say that it will only add to the dissatisfaction that the platform and gig workers have been expressing through collective action, disrupting business as usual (Times of India, 2025; Singh, Panwar, K., & Kumar, 2024; Barik, 2023).
