During the Budget speech, the Finance inister talked about the 20-year long process of implementing the labour codes in India. These codes passed by the Lok Sabha in the previous year includes the extension of Employee State Insurance (ESI) and other social security mechanisms to gig economy workers.
This is a welcome move and successful implementation of these measures would reduce the vulnerability of these workers and provide a safety net to help absorb financial shocks. India was one of the first countries to roll out a major social security programme at a very early stage of its development, with the passing of the Employees’ State Insurance Act in 1948 and the Employees’ Provident Fund Act in 1952. These programmes are aimed at covering millions of factory workers across the major industrial centres, providing them with various cash benefits in the event of health and income shocks. While there have been welfare schemes over the last decade targeted at the unorganised…