Context

• With the growing presence of app-based gig workers in its economy, India has begun acknowledging the unique challenges this new workforce segment faces.
• The recent efforts to integrate gig workers into the fold of social security, including proposed schemes such as health coverage under Ayushman Bharat, registration on the eShram portal, and a transaction-based pension policy, signify a progressive step.
• However, while these moves represent a shift in policy mindset, they also cast a spotlight on the deeper structural shortcomings of India's existing social protection framework.

A Promising Shift in Approach

• The planned initiatives mark a departure from the traditional model that tied social security exclusively to formal employment.
• Gig workers, who often operate outside conventional employer-employee relationships and may work across multiple platforms, have historically been excluded from state welfare.
• The universal account number system proposed in the pension scheme is a promising development.
• It facilitates a seamless tracking of gig workers' earnings across platforms and enables proportional contributions from each employer, thereby recognizing the fragmented nature of gig employment.
• In a country where informal workers have long been sidelined from formal welfare mechanisms, these reforms hint at a more inclusive vision.
• They suggest a slow but meaningful shift from exclusionary practices to a broader understanding of labour rights.

Systemic Flaws in the Existing Framework

• Piecemeal Commitment: Incremental Approach to Reforms
  • Despite these advances, the broader structure of India’s social protection remains fundamentally flawed.
  • India’s failure to ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), is emblematic of its piecemeal commitment to comprehensive labour welfare.
  • Even the recently enacted Code on Social Security, touted as a landmark reform, has faced criticism for its ambiguous provisions, diluted protections, and the persistent challenges in its implementation.
• Over Reliance on Welfare Boards
  • A major concern is the over-reliance on welfare boards for the delivery of benefits.
  • These boards have frequently been marred by inefficiency and underutilisation of funds.
  • Recent reports, including a Right to Information petition and a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) review, have revealed massive unspent cess collections and delayed payments.
  • Even states like Kerala, long considered progressive in labour welfare, show uneven performance, with many welfare boards failing to serve beneficiaries effectively.
  • This reflects a chronic issue: a well-intentioned policy apparatus undermined by weak governance and execution.

Implications of Incremental Approach

• Fragmented Approach
  • Different worker groups, beedi workers, construction workers, gig workers, domestic workers, are all treated as separate silos, each with its own welfare board, funding mechanism, eligibility criteria, and implementation process.
  • While this might allow for tailored schemes in theory, in practice, it creates an uneven landscape where access to social protection depends more on bureaucratic classification than actual need or vulnerability.
  • As a result, workers who perform equally precarious labour may enjoy vastly different levels of support simply because of the sector they are classified under.
• Reinforcing Exclusion
  • The emergence of gig workers as a focus for policy innovation is welcome, but it raises an important question: what about the millions of other informal workers who have been struggling without social protection for decades?
  • By focusing reform energy on new categories of workers while neglecting older or less visible groups, India runs the risk of creating a hierarchy of informality, where some forms of informal work are seen as more deserving of attention and benefits than others.
• Short Term Fixes Over Structural Reform
  • This piecemeal strategy also tends to promote short-term fixes over structural reform.
  • For instance, establishing new welfare boards or funds for each new category of informal worker might provide temporary relief.
  • But it does not solve the systemic issues of poor governance, lack of transparency, and weak enforcement mechanisms that plague the overall welfare infrastructure.
  • Rather than building resilient institutions capable of adapting to future challenges, the state often opts for narrowly scoped schemes that quickly become outdated or defunct, as seen with the closure of several older welfare boards.

The Case for Universal Social Protection

• To truly prepare for the future of work, India must pivot towards a more robust, inclusive, and universal model of social protection.
• Such a system should not only accommodate current categories of workers but be flexible enough to adapt to future disruptions brought about by technological advancement or economic shifts.
• The Social Security Code, despite its limitations, could serve as a foundational framework.
• If treated as a minimum baseline rather than a comprehensive solution, the Code offers a springboard for more progressive state-level innovations.
• States should leverage the autonomy afforded to them within the Code to develop schemes that are not only context-specific but also designed with a vision of universality and sustainability.

Conclusion

• India's recent efforts to extend social security to gig workers signal an important policy transition.
• However, without addressing the structural weaknesses of its social welfare systems and moving beyond reactive, segmented strategies, these reforms may fall short of their transformative potential.
• A future-ready workforce requires a future-ready welfare architecture, one that is inclusive, adaptable, and fundamentally grounded in the principle that no worker, irrespective of their employment type, is left behind.