Gig and platform workers represent the new face of labour precarity in India. Evaluate the adequacy of existing legal frameworks in protecting their rights.

The Code on Social Security, 2020 gave Indian statute its first definitions of "gig worker" and "platform worker" — those earning outside the traditional employer–employee relationship [1]. This recognition is real progress, but the framework secures welfare benefits without securing bargaining power, leaving protection partial.

Where the framework delivers

• Statutory recognition: the Code brings gig and platform workers under the National Social Security Board and mandates a dedicated Social Security Fund [1].
• Employer-side financing: aggregators must contribute 1–2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of payments made to such workers — a first attempt to make platforms bear social cost [1].
• Operationalisation: the Code came into force on 21 November 2025, extending life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, and old-age protection [2].
• Portability: e-Shram registration with major aggregators onboarded links workers to identity cards and AB-PMJAY health cover, addressing the mobility that defeats firm-based welfare [2].

Where it remains inadequate

• No collective voice: the Industrial Relations Code's negotiating union mechanism rests on unions of workers in an industrial establishment [3]; gig workers, defined as outside the employment relationship, fall outside both it and the Trade Unions Act, 1926, which covers workmen employed in a trade or industry [4].
• Welfare, not rights: there is no statutory minimum wage floor, working-hour cap, or protection against arbitrary algorithmic deactivation.
• Scheme-dependent delivery: benefits flow through executive schemes rather than enforceable entitlements, with weak grievance redressal.
• International gap: India has not ratified ILO Conventions No. 87 and No. 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining [5].

The framework is thus adequate as a social security floor but inadequate as a rights framework. Extending recognition of platform work as employment for bargaining purposes, mandating transparency in algorithmic management, and ensuring timely aggregator compliance would convert welfare inclusion into genuine security — advancing Article 43A's promise of worker participation and the decent-work commitment under SDG 8.