Social Security For Gig And Platform Workers Under The Code On Social Security, 2020: Gaps, Challenges, And The Road Ahead
- IJLLR Journal
- May 8
- 2 min read
Ashwath Chitranshi & Aryan Sharma, B.B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), Bennett University, School of Law, Greater Noida
ABSTRACT
The rise of platform-mediated labour has fundamentally altered the traditional contours of the employer-employee relationship. In India, this transformation has produced a workforce of approximately 12 million gig and platform workers as of 2024-25 a figure projected to exceed 23.5 million by 2029-30 who remain structurally exposed to income volatility, occupational hazards, and the near-total absence of formal social protection. The Code on Social Security, 2020, which came into force on 21 November 2025 as part of India's historic consolidation of 29 central labour statutes into four Labour Codes, represents the first legislative attempt to extend a social security architecture to this workforce. Sections 109 through 114 of the Code introduce a definitional framework for gig and platform workers, mandate a Social Security Fund financed through aggregator contributions, and contemplate schemes covering life, disability, health, maternity, and old-age protection.
Nevertheless, the paper argues that the Code's promise substantially outpaces its delivery. Three structural deficits are identified: (i) definitional ambiguity producing tripartite overlap between the categories of gig worker, platform worker, and unorganised worker; (ii) an implementation vacuum characterised by permissive rather than mandatory legislative language, the absence of notified welfare schemes, and the non-notification of aggregator contribution rates; and (iii) systemic exclusion from the three remaining Labour Codes governing wages, occupational safety, and industrial relations. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence from the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Singapore, and benchmarking India's framework against ILO Convention No. 102 and the ILO's 2025 standards on platform work, this paper formulates a set of legislative and administrative recommendations directed at transforming the Code's aspirational provisions into enforceable rights. The study employs a doctrinal methodology supplemented by empirical data and comparative analysis.
