The government is likely to soon introduce a scheme to provide pensions to platform workers, along with bringing them under social security net, according to a senior official.
The scheme, which will be administered by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), is likely to provide pensions to around 1 million platform workers, and may be launched by early FY26, according to sources.
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Although the mechanism through which contribution towards the workers pension fund is still under works, sources say that about 2% of any workers’ daily earnings would be added to that fund. “The employer (platform) will make this contribution to the fund, based on the determined formula (2% of earnings),” an official said.
Since many platform workers often work with two or more aggregators, all the employers will be told to contribute to the fund, based on the same formula. The platform worker will have a single Universal Account Number (UAN) issued by the EPFO, which will be shared by all his/her employers, and hence their contribution will go towards one single pension fund, say sources. In case, any worker decides to move to a regular job, the social security account under the scheme would be merged with his account under the EPFO.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in the Budget that each gig-worker will be registered on the labour ministry’s e-Shram portal and be assigned a 12 UAN, to get health insurance benefits under PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY).
Earlier this week, labour secretary Sumita Dawra had told FE that a pilot initiative–for registering workers on e-Shram–has already been undertaken in that regard by the government, and an aggregator module has been piloted enabling the digital platforms to onboard their workers on the portal.
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“We need a scheme to enable all the benefits to flow, and that needs Cabinet approval,” Dawra had said. The labour ministry has begun discussions with the National Health Authority to form a plan (for the insurance coverage), and very soon, in the coming weeks, a proposal will be sent to the Cabinet. The scheme will be guided by the provisions of the Code on Social Security,
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