India has begun regulating the platform economy, with the Code on Social Security, 2020 recognising “gig” and “platform” workers for the first time. Although the Code was not notified until 2025, five states – Rajasthan, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand – moved ahead with their own, more detailed laws. These laws share a common institutional core: a welfare board, funded by a cess on digital platforms, to register workers and deliver benefits.
This familiar template has been used for other informal occupations for decades. But before it is extended to platform workers, a basic question needs answering: can an institution that has struggled to protect relatively stable occupational groups deliver for workers who move across platforms, occupations and states?
The Welfare Board Problem
India has relied on occupation-based welfare boards for more than five decades to provide benefits to informal workers, who must register to access them. The rationale was straightforward: sector-specific boards could tailor welfare to the realities of particular occupations.
In practice, registration has been limited. Official data show that about 5 crore construction workers were registered with Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) welfare boards, compared with an estimated workforce of about 8 crore. In 2025, an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of Delhi’s BOCW Board found worker databases riddled with errors and gaps.
The Delhi audit found problems well beyond registration. Benefits were delayed or duplicated, grievance redressal was weak, health services reached only a fraction of beneficiaries, and inspections were negligible.
Large amounts of welfare funds also remained unspent. A 2025 Committee on Empowerment of Women report noted that almost all BOCW boards across states had not fully utilised the cess collected. Of Rs 1.18 lakh crore collected, only Rs 68,167 crore had been spent.
These failures expose a deeper weakness in the welfare-board model: access depends on workers remaining visible within occupation-specific administrative systems, while registration, contributions and benefits may be managed through institutions that do not communicate with one another.
The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, now subsumed into the 2020 Code, also sought to extend social security to informal workers through National and State Social Security Boards, but made little difference on the ground. Despite this record, states are extending a similar institutional model to platform workers.
Platform Work Tests the Model
Platform workers can work across multiple platforms, move between cities and shift in and out of platform work, testing an architecture built around relatively stable occupational categories.
Yet platform work also offers an advantage traditional informal employment did not: platforms already generate digital records of worker identity, earnings and work activity. The challenge is not simply identifying workers, but using this data to support portable social security.
Current state laws do not adequately require platforms to share such data. The legal framework is fragmented too. The 2020 Code covers gig workers beyond those working through platforms, while state Acts focus on platform-based gig work and often use “gig” and “platform” worker interchangeably. Different definitions can create different administrative populations and uncertainty over who qualifies for benefits.
The same worker can consequently acquire multiple administrative identities, registered on e-Shram and with a state welfare board while benefits remain tied to particular state schemes. The problem becomes sharper when workers change platforms, occupations or states: their identity, contribution record, eligibility and benefits all need to move with them. Yet there is no common floor of protection guaranteed to every platform worker.
A Social Security System Built Around Workers
The larger question is what should organise social security in an increasingly fluid labour market. Welfare boards may continue to finance or administer benefits, but the organising unit should be the worker.
Three shifts follow.
First, create a single, portable social-security identity. The Union government’s e-Shram portal is already a national database for unorganised workers, including gig workers. State laws should harmonise their definitions of gig and platform workers with the national framework. Platform onboarding could be linked to e-Shram registration, while state welfare boards draw on the same worker record rather than create parallel databases.
Second, make records and benefits portable. A common registration system achieves little if contribution histories and eligibility remain fragmented. Platforms, e-Shram and state welfare institutions need interoperable data-sharing standards so that records and contributions can follow workers across platforms and states. Such data exchange would require clear rules on consent, purpose limitation, privacy and data security.
Third, establish a common minimum floor of social protection. States could provide additional benefits and welfare boards could retain administrative or financing functions, but basic protection should follow workers across occupations, platforms and states.
Stronger oversight must accompany these changes. Annual audits that reveal dormant funds years after contributions have accumulated are an inferior substitute for continuous accountability. Transparent reporting, measurable performance indicators and independent oversight with enforcement powers should be built into the system.
The need to protect gig and platform workers is well established. Platform work is also a stress test of India’s wider social-protection architecture. As workers move across occupations, platforms and states, social security cannot remain organised around stable occupational categories. The institution that must become portable is not the welfare board, but the worker’s entitlement to protection.