Indian gig workers ought to get a well-crafted social security net
₹38,000 crore of a similar fund for the welfare of building and construction workers is sitting unused in governmental coffers. A centralized fund for gig worker welfare is a 19th century solution for a 21st century problem. A far better way is to channel money directly into individual gig worker welfare accounts.
There is already a technology and financial infrastructure—in the form of Aadhaar and UPI—to make targeted welfare payments. Rajasthan should use this instead of duplicating efforts of creating new unique IDs and payment channels. The welfare board should create individual accounts for the monthly transfer of funds into them.
In addition to investing the capital under its management for long-term returns, this fund should be used to purchase group insurance—life, term, health and accident—for its members. Also, it could help mitigate the effects of gig income volatility by enabling discounted micro-overdraft loans, using the Open Credit Enablement Network that has already been rolled out. As much as I favour putting in place a strong social security system, I do not like the idea of extracting a 2% cess from aggregators to finance it.
It seems wrong in principle. Social security is society’s obligation and cannot be transferred to private firms. It should rightfully be financed by the state’s exchequer, from the taxes that individuals and corporations already pay.
It is desirable to get aggregators, employers and consumers to contribute too, but this must be through moral obligations, not tax liabilities. The government could offer matching grants to encourage voluntary contributions. An architecture that gets samaaj-bazaar-sarkar into harmony with each playing its rightful role is likelier to prove sustainable
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