Critically examine the adequacy of the Code on Social Security, 2020 in addressing the welfare needs of gig and platform workers.

The Code on Social Security, 2020 — brought into force on 21 November 2025 — for the first time defines "gig worker" and "platform worker" in Indian statute [2]. For a workforce NITI Aayog placed at 77 lakh in 2020-21 and projects at 2.35 crore by 2029-30 [4], the Code is a decisive advance in recognition, but its welfare promise remains only partially realised.

Strengths of the Code

• Legal recognition: gig and platform workers are treated as a distinct category outside the traditional employer-employee binary, ending their statutory invisibility [2].
• Benefit mandate: enables schemes for life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits and old-age protection [2].
• Financing mechanism: provides for a Social Security Fund, with aggregator contributions, and a National Social Security Board for gig and platform workers [2].
• Delivery infrastructure: the e-Shram database (30.48 crore unorganised workers by December 2024) and its aggregator module give the Code an operational spine [1].

Persisting inadequacies

• Enabling, not entitling: benefits depend on schemes the government "may" frame; nothing is a justiciable right, and the five-year gap before enforcement illustrates the cost of discretion [2].
• Enumeration deficit: only about 8.58 lakh gig workers stood registered on e-Shram as against the Budget 2025-26 estimate of over one crore beneficiaries — leaving roughly five of six outside reach [3].
• Self-declaration model: registration hinges on worker awareness and aggregator cooperation, producing uneven State-wise uptake [1].
• Silences: minimum wages, working-hour limits, algorithmic transparency and dispute redress lie outside the Code, prompting State laws such as Rajasthan's and Karnataka's.

The Code is thus adequate in architecture but not yet in reach: it builds the vessel while leaving it thinly filled. Time-bound notification of contribution rules, aggregator-linked auto-enrolment on e-Shram, and portable, Aadhaar-seeded benefits can convert recognition into protection — realising the Directive Principle under Article 41 of the right to public assistance in sickness and old age.