1.5 lakh gig workers, only one boards TN platform
After the board was established under the provision of the Tamil Nadu Workers’ (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Workers) Act 1982, the labour department kick-started the registration of the gig workers in the existing manual workers’ welfare boards.
Representative Image
CHENNAI: Rolled out on December 27 last year following Chief Minister MK Stalin’s Independence Day announcement, the Tamil Nadu Platform Based Gig Workers’ Welfare Board for the manual workers engaged in platform-based gig works in the State has just one gig worker enrolled. The welfare board, the TN government then claimed, was only second to that of Rajasthan, initiated by the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government, to extend social security schemes to the platform-based workforce.
After the board was established under the provision of the Tamil Nadu Workers’ (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Workers) Act 1982, the labour department kick-started the registration of the gig workers in the existing manual workers’ welfare boards. They, in turn, would be re-enrolled in the welfare board formed exclusively for them.
However, the government order did not translate into action to bring the 1.5 lakh-odd gig workers and cab aggregators into the fold of the welfare board to date. “So far, only one gig worker (in Madurai) registered with the welfare board. We will take measures to reach out to the targeted group and encourage them to enrol in the coming months,” a senior official in the department told DT Next, preferring anonymity.
Citing the existing model code of conduct that would be in force till June 4, another official said they would soon commence the work to frame a policy that would mirror the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers’ Act 2023 to guarantee certain social security rights. He, however, did not have an answer to the near nil number of enrollment of gig workers in the State even 100 days after its launch.
General secretary of Tamil Nadu Food and Allied Products Delivery Workers Union S Ramakrishnan said there was “zero” effect from the authorities to educate and encourage the gig workers to enrol in the welfare board. “We have not received any communication from the officials concerned,” he said and noted that there were around 25,000 food delivery persons in Chennai and a significant number in Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchy and other second-tier cities in the state.
“Majority of the food delivery agents are in the dark on the government setting up the welfare board,” said 35-year-old K Karthi of Katpadi in Vellore, flagging the failure on the part of the bureaucracy to popularise an upright initiative.
