Laveena Choudhary
Everything is possible at the tap of a screen these days, whether it’s ordering groceries, booking a cab, or hiring someone for personal care services. The promise of delivery in minutes has made life smoother and more dependable. But we often overlook the human effort running through the city behind every order. These jobs are among the fastest-growing in recent years, yet they are marked by odd hours, a lack of basic amenities, occupational risks, and a lack of proper grievance redressal mechanisms. India’s gig workforce was estimated at 7.7 million in 2020-21 and is projected to reach 23.5 million by 2029-30 (NITI Aayog, 2022).
The consolidation of labour laws into four codes marked a first step towards formally recognising gig and platform workers and provided for social security funds and boards to extend welfare to them (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2020). The Code on Social Security requires aggregators to contribute a small share of their annual turnover to these schemes. The harder question is who the employer actually is. Platforms describe themselves as intermediaries that merely connect customers and workers, thereby keeping the workforce outside the traditional employer-employee relationship and its obligations.
A global debate
India is not alone. In Uber BV v Aslam (2021), the UK Supreme Court held that Uber drivers were “workers” entitled to basic protections, not independent contractors. The European Union has since adopted a directive that presumes an employment relationship where a platform exercises control over the person doing the work (European Parliament & Council, 2024). The International Labour Organisation (2021) has similarly flagged how digital labour platforms blur responsibility, and the burden of proof often falls on workers. The world is moving, unevenly, from asking “is this person an employee?” to asking “who holds power over this work?”
For instance, the case of South Korea, which defines an employee as a person, regardless of the kind of occupation, who offers labour to a business or a workplace for the purpose of earning wages, as per their Labour Standards Act, is a great example of how a worker, regardless of his/her profession, should be the same. It has partnered with the Korean Legal Aid Corporation to provide free legal representation for these workers, but focusing on civil disputes narrows the potential scope.
It reduces differences between employee categories and ensures equitable incentives and social protection coverage for everyone. Similarly, in Indonesia, which is one of the fastest-growing gig and platform economies in Southeast Asia, represents a complex case as gig workers are eligible for three contributory social security programs: life insurance, work injury insurance, and old-age savings but still participation is comparatively low in these programs despite enhanced financial literacy levels among the workers.
The gaps on the ground
For workers, the city is the workplace, but it was never designed for them. Many have no access to clean toilets, drinking water, or places to rest between orders. Fairwork India’s platform ratings consistently show that most platforms score poorly on fair pay, working conditions, and worker representation
(Fairwork, 2023). Pay can be unpredictable, algorithms assign and penalise work without explanation, and a short delivery window pushes riders towards risky driving. Accident cover and health insurance are patchy, and complaints often vanish into automated support systems.
The gender dimension is sharper still. Women are a small fraction of platform workers, and the lack of safe, accessible washrooms, safety concerns during late hours, and the absence of care support make it harder for them to enter or sustain the work. Where women do join, they are often concentrated in home-based services, where earnings are lower, and safety risks inside customers’ homes are rarely addressed.
As summers get hotter, riders and drivers work through peak afternoon temperatures to hit their targets. Heat stress is no longer only a public health concern but a workplace one. Several Indian states have recognised heatwaves as state-specific disasters, and some platforms and local administrations have begun setting up rest points, shaded stops, and water stations for workers to pause.
Some states have gone further with their own laws. Rajasthan’s Platform-Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, was among the first to create a welfare board and a registration system for such workers. These are welcome beginnings, but they are patchy, and a rest shelter that is hard to find or too far from delivery routes does little for someone on a tight schedule.
The dedicated rest stops being built for gig and platform workers are a welcome step to recognise the hard labour and ensure proper rest between work for them.
What workers actually want
Ask workers and the demands are strikingly basic. They want predictable and transparent earnings, with clear explanations for pay cuts and account blocks. They want accident and health cover that works in practice, and a human being to speak to when something goes wrong. They want toilets, water, and shade within reach, and the dignity of being treated as part of the city’s workforce, not as disposable users of an app.
The way forward
As the recognition of gig and platform workers in India solidifies through the Codes and state-specific legislations in the case of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar, Telangana and Jharkhand, we further landscape this on the basis of decent working conditions of workers and the measures that ensure sustained access to social protection, in terms of minimum wages, and adequate grievance redressal mechanisms. These acts have a scope of transparency in the algorithmic mechanism and ensure verification of workers on the platform.
Mandating e-shram registration for platform-based workers, proposing tripartite participation through national security boards, extending social security to gig and platform workers , defining eligibility criteria, and state-specific acts are a welcome step towards the formalisation of workers. The city runs on gig workers, and they deserve a city that is built for them, too.
References
European Parliament & Council. (2024). Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on improving working conditions in platform work. Official Journal of the European Union.
Fairwork. (2023). Fairwork India ratings 2023: Labour standards in the platform economy. Oxford Internet Institute; International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
International Labour Organisation. (2021). World employment and social outlook 2021: The role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work. https://www.ilo.org
Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. (2020). The Code on Social Security, 2020. Gazette of India.
NITI Aayog. (2022). India’s booming gig and platform economy: Perspectives and recommendations on the future of work. Government of India.
Rajasthan Platform-Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023 (Rajasthan).
Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5.
About the Contributor: Laveena Choudhary is an Executive in Government Relations at Indus Action Initiatives, where she leads policy research and works with government departments to strengthen programme implementation across education, labour, livelihoods, and social protection. She previously led action research on labour rights and gender equality in Ludhiana as a Senior Fellow at the Society for Labour and Development.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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Acknowledgement: This article was posted by Ninchen Tamang, a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI.
