Centre proposes 90 days work rule for gig workers to get social security

Centre pre-publishes draft labour rules, says gig workers must work 90 days a year to qualify for social security benefits; stakeholders can give feedback

The Ministry of Labour and Employment on Thursday pre-published draft rules for the four labour codes and invited feedback from stakeholders. The government plans to implement all four labour codes across the country together from April 1.

 

The four codes — the Code on Wages, 2019; Industrial Relations Code, 2020; Code on Social Security, 2020; and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 — were notified on the same day.

 

Eligibility rules proposed for gig workers

 

In the draft rules, the Centre has proposed eligibility conditions for gig and platform workers to receive benefits under the labour codes. According to the proposal, workers must be engaged for “not less than 90 days with an aggregator, or in the case of multiple aggregators, not less than one hundred and twenty days, in the last financial year".

 

 

The notification is dated December 30, 2025, and was issued a day before gig and platform workers went on strike on New Year’s Eve, demanding higher payouts and better working conditions.

 

Under the draft rules, a gig or platform worker must be associated with an aggregator for at least 90 days in a financial year to qualify for social security benefits created by the Centre. If a worker is engaged with more than one aggregator, the minimum requirement rises to 120 days.

 

How ‘engagement’ is defined under the draft labour rules

 

The rules clarify that a worker is considered “engaged” on any calendar day if they earn income for work done for an aggregator, regardless of how much they earn.

 

The document explains:

• A gig worker or platform worker will be counted as engaged for one day if they earn any income, irrespective of the amount, for work done for an aggregator on that calendar day.

• If a worker is associated with multiple aggregators, the number of engagement days will be added together across all aggregators.

• If a worker is engaged with three aggregators on the same calendar day, it will be counted as three separate days of engagement.   

 

Centre seeks stakeholder feedback before final notification

 

The government has invited objections and suggestions from all concerned stakeholders for a period of 30 to 45 days. These inputs will be reviewed before the rules are finalised, according to notifications uploaded on the labour ministry’s website.

 

After the consultation period, the final rules will be notified. This is part of the labour ministry’s plan to make all provisions of the four labour codes fully operational from April 1.

 

‘Gig workers aren’t exploited’: Deepinder Goyal

 

Amid the debate around working conditions, Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal on Thursday rejected claims that gig workers are exploited, calling such views “vested narratives”.

 

His comments came after Zomato and Blinkit delivered more than 7.5 million orders on New Year’s Eve, their highest-ever single-day volume.

 

In a post on X, Goyal said concerns about fast deliveries often arise from a lack of understanding of how the system functions.

 

“I understand why everybody thinks that 10-minute delivery must be risking lives, because it is hard to imagine the sheer complexity of the system design that enables quick deliveries,” he said.

 

He added, “No system is perfect, and we are all for making it better than today. However, it is far from what is being portrayed on social media by people who don’t understand how our system works and why."

 

Rejecting allegations of exploitation, Goyal said, “If I were outside the system, I would also believe that gig workers are being exploited, but that’s not true.”