Government is working on a plan to provide social security to gig and platform workers

New Delhi, November 25 (IANS). The Central Government has constituted a committee to formulate a framework for the purpose of providing social security and welfare benefits to gig and platform workers. The government gave this information in Parliament on Monday.

Gig and platform workers were defined for the first time in the Social Security Code-2020 enacted by Parliament.

Shobha Karandlaje, Minister of State for Labor and Employment, said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha that the Code contains provisions related to social security and welfare benefits for gig and platform workers.

He said that the Code has provisions to formulate appropriate social security measures for gig and platform workers on matters relating to life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, old age security etc. The Code also provides for the establishment of a Social Security Fund to finance the welfare scheme.

In an advisory issued by the Ministry of Labor and Employment to the aggregators, it was said that they should register themselves and the workers associated with them on the e-Shram portal.

The e-Shram portal was launched by the ministry on August 26, 2021. Its objective was to create a national database of informal workers.

Any informal sector employee can register on the e-Shram portal through Aadhaar.

In October this year, around 60,000 registrations were done per day on the e-Shram portal and on October 9, the number of registrations in a single day had reached 97,839, Karandlaje said in reply to a separate question in the Lok Sabha.

As of November 19, 30.4 crore informal sector workers were registered on the e-Shram portal on self-declaration basis.

The Union Minister said that integration of social security and welfare schemes with the e-Shram portal is an ongoing process.

–IANS

ABS/ABM

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