A Swiggy rider has delivered an order. An Uber driver has completed a trip. An Urban Company professional has done a service. They are all earning through an app, but unlike regular employees who get provident fund contributions and insurance from their employers, they do not have traditional employment linkages.

India is now trying to do something innovative. The country is trying to build social security around non-integrated employment.

The 2026 Social Security Rules create processes and responsibilities for online platforms to register workers and contribute to their social-security benefits. The application intermediary is now also playing a welfare state role that links the customer to the worker.

Gig Work Breaks the Employment Linkage

Regular employment captures the employer-employee connection where a single worker gets benefits like provident fund, insurance, etc., based on salary, hours, and processes defined by the company.

Gig work breaks this link. A person can use multiple apps as a driver or as a delivery rider. They can have more autonomy and flexibility in choosing their work hours and the platforms they work with. However, in doing so, they also lose certain employment benefits that previously came automatically with a regular salary. How does a country build social security around such non-integrated employment?

India Creates a New Legal Category

The Code on Social Security now recognizes gig workers and platform workers by allowing the government to create appropriate schemes for their welfare. It legislates for life and disability coverage, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, and old-age protection, among others, for gig and platform workers.

This change is critical. By recognizing a legal category of workers who do not fit the traditional employee-employer paradigm, the legislation now creates a space to discuss benefits that such workers should receive.

The move towards portability of benefits is also a critical step. Instead of creating the same rigid employment benefits as regular companies, the new code focuses on designing benefits around the worker.

The Platform Can Help Fund the System

But here is the exciting bit. The Social Security Code allows for aggregator contributions of 1 to 2% of turnover for eligible businesses, up to a cap linked to the amount paid to workers. Actual rates and processes will be determined based on notifications and specific schemes. The 2026 rules allow for contributions to be calculated, collected, and allocated to specific benefit funds.

This means the costs of social security are now being embedded into the broader digital platform economy. When a customer pays ₹200 for a food delivery, this money is now being split between the restaurant, delivery rider, and the government in terms of taxes. Going forward, not only will the government receive its share, but the broader platform economy will carry a part of this money to fund welfare benefits.

The welfare state is invading the economics of the platform ecosystem.

Benefits Need to Follow the Worker

Typically, an organization has an exact view of its employee base. A platform, on the other hand, finds itself in a constant flux of workers joining and leaving. Some may even be using multiple apps at the same time.

India is solving this issue by using the e-Shram portal that allows workers to register as platform workers. A majority of the large platforms, including Zomato, Blinkit, Uber, Amazon, Ola, Swiggy, Rapido, and Zepto, and others are already on board with the aggregator module and are allowing workers to create their digital presence with a portable worker identity.

The 2026 rules make it mandatory for aggregators to report these details to the relevant government portal. The idea is to make benefits portable and track them digitally instead of tying benefits to a single company.

Portability Is the Real Innovation

A worker may be earning 40% from Swiggy, 35% from another player, and 25% from independent freelancing. Who gets their insurance benefits from? Who covers their old-age retirement benefits? In India's current legal framework, there is not one defined answer.

Portable benefits try to capture the changing nature of employment where a worker has multiple sources of income. Instead of social security benefits getting tied to one company, the benefits can follow each worker across multiple platforms, ensuring they have appropriate protections at every stage.

This is especially important for a gig worker who today already finds themselves in a non-permanent job for most of their careers.

The Cost Will Not Vanish

It is important to recognize that platforms will push back on any substantial mandatory contributions. Delivery is already a razor-thin business, with most players operating with low margins to offer competitive pricing to customers. At the same time, drivers are looking for consistent and fair earnings, while restaurants are pushing for lower commissions, and investors are focused on profits. Adding mandatory contributions will see margins shrink, prices rise, commissions fall, and maybe even less investment in the ecosystem.

Who bears the cost of such contributions is a market-led mechanism to be worked out between the various stakeholders.

Algorithms Already Function Like Management

The entire debate around employment is interesting, but the functioning of platforms reveals why the distinction is not as important as it seems.

While it is true that a delivery rider or a cab driver can choose when and where to work, the algorithm controls who gets the job, how much they earn, which shifts get offered, how they are reviewed, and if they continue to have work. The rider may have more choice than a regular office employee, but the algorithm manages their economic opportunities and sets their performance expectations.

India's social-security code tries to capture some of these nuances. By recognizing the unique nature of platform employment, the code tries to ensure that appropriate benefits are managed without getting tied to the traditional employer-employee paradigm.

The Gig Economy Is Becoming Less Gig-Like

Platforms like to operate as decentralized marketplaces that bring together independent contractors. There is no regular salaried delivery force that gets benefits, shifts, or schedules dictated by the company. Work comes as and when it arrives.

This is great news for the platforms since it reduces their costs. At the same time, as more people rely on gig work for their primary source of income, society finds itself in a position where it needs to think through many traditional welfare-state roles, like insurance, benefits, and retirement funds, that were previously designed for regular employment.

More regulation may soon follow for the platform economy as it grows significantly in scale and economic importance.