Govt working on welfare and social security benefits for gig workers

Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday chaired a meeting with employee associations of gig and platform workers in a bid to provide millions of such workers with social security benefits like health insurance and pension.

The meeting was attended in person and virtually by platform workers’ associations representing workers across India, including Rajasthan, Assam, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Chandigarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, and Delhi-NCR. 

"A committee has been formed by the ministry to develop a framework for providing social security and welfare benefits to gig & platform workers, aiming to gather perspectives from all relevant stakeholders," said the labour ministry in a statement. 

A new version of the E-shram portal (E-shram 2.0) will also be launched in the coming week which will ensure the onboarding of platform workers onto the portal, said Mandaviya.

Shaik Salauddin, who represented the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) in the meeting, said it was discussed that the security benefits as a legal entitlement should be linked to a unique ID for each gig and platform worker. 

“It should be the responsibility of aggregator companies to register workers on central and state government portals. All welfare benefits of central and state governments should be merged with the unique ID as a legal entitlement, and there should be inter-state portability of benefits,” he said. 

“Since a gig or platform worker can be working on several platforms, they cannot be brought under the employer and employee relationship. Accordingly, different options are being looked into. One option that was discussed was to assign a unique ID to such workers based on which contributions per transaction can be deducted through the platform,” said another employee representative, requesting anonymity.