Government notifies national social-security boards for unorganised, gig and platform workers

The Union government has constituted the National Social Security Board for Unorganised Workers and the National Social Security Board for Gig and Platform Workers under the Code on Social Security framework. The notification gives gig and platform workers a formal national institution through which welfare schemes can be recommended, reviewed and monitored.

The board for gig and platform workers is chaired by the Union Labour Minister and includes representatives of the Union and State governments, aggregators, employers and workers. The official notification also requires at least three meetings a year. This matters because platform work cuts across traditional employer-employee categories and raises questions of portability, contribution design, worker identification and accountability across multiple digital platforms.

For civil-services preparation, the key distinction is institutional creation versus automatic benefit delivery: notifying a board does not itself enrol every gig worker in every social-security scheme. The governance challenge is to translate representation and recommendations into portable benefits, reliable worker databases, clear financing responsibilities and grievance redress while retaining labour-market flexibility.