For 25-year-old M. Anbarasan, a driver of the Chennai ride-hailing app, started at 6 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. He drove a rented automatic rickshaw and had been working for four years. Every day, he faces bad roads, difficult customers, frustrating traffic, and ruthless heat or rain. When asked how he dealt with it, Mr. Ambarasan replied, “What choice do we have?” “Choose” perfectly encapsulates the irony of the performance. Although one can say that the work of the show provides flexibility – which attracts many young and middle-aged people who are struggling to find traditional employment, activists and workers point out that the agents of these “delivery partners” lack agency.
Under the Social Security Code 2020, a performance worker broadly means that someone engages in a job or work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship and earns income from such activities. However, for the purposes of this article, it refers to cycling app drivers and food or grocery delivery workers. According to Niti Aayog’s 2022 report, there are more than 10 million performing workers in India, and by 2030, the number may increase to 23.5 million. None of them is called a “partner” by a contracting company and is entitled to social security benefits provided to formal employees.
Salary drop
“Six years ago, I made Rs 600 for 10 orders; now, it’s only Rs 250. He rides 200 km a day and earns Rs 20,000-Rs 23,000 a month. But he spends Rs 300 a day on fuel and Rs 2500 a month on maintenance.
Delivery workers also complain about long distances on bad roads. It causes losses to their health. “Usually, I have to endure shoulder pain and low back pain. But I have to keep moving forward to make ends meet. Other jobs don’t get Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 a month.”
For A. priyalatha, a 35-year-old single mother from Tiruchi Lalgudi, food delivery is both a lifeline and a risk. She worked at Anganwadi from 9am to 4pm and ordered orders with her two-wheeler from 6pm to 11pm, and she worked 13 hours on Sunday to support her family. Safety is a major issue. “Drunk customers abuse us, and being late can be frightening,” she said, threatening with stray dogs and drunk men.
D. Chithra of Tambaram, a driver for online ride-hailing services, said the men’s book “Bikes” is for women to travel with female two-wheeler drivers only. “Many people travel correctly, but some are addicted to indecent behavior. I’m not afraid of them, and I ask them not to sit too close. But it’s uncomfortable to have to do this every day. I’m calling the client now to check if it’s a woman before taking the trip,” she said.
Work pressure
Although some workers say they are not under any pressure on time delivery, the nature of the job itself prompts them to complete each delivery as quickly as possible to receive the next delivery as soon as possible. Preliminary results from a survey of 82 food and grocery delivery workers in Chennai show that most people don’t take a leave and sometimes work the entire day of the week, undermining work-life balance. The survey was conducted by M.Sc’s final year student Sivaranchani M., visiting lecturer in the Department of Counseling Psychology and University of Psychology Counseling at the University of Madras.
While delivery jobs provide unemployed young people with the opportunity to make money, not everyone is satisfied with their working conditions. They said they need to summarize at least 20-25 orders in 10 hours to earn meager incentives over Rs 200 a day. Chithra, a deliveryman in Coimbatore for three years, said she couldn’t even use toilet facilities or fill a restaurant with water bottles during the days she accepted about 25 orders. “But you make more on such busy days. The pressure to accept more orders is mainly personal – the debt has to be cleared, the pursuit of learning and managing the family.”
Additional distances due to temporary traffic transfers, jams or protests are not included in the travel allowance. Ajith Kumar, an Autorickshaw driver in Chennai who relies on Appshaw, said poor road conditions allow passengers to be quickly contacted once a ride is booked. However, after covering a kilometre or two, passengers often cancel their journeys on the grounds of “waiting too long.” “These 2 kilometers are in vain. In total, we drive about 10 kilometers a day without making money,” he added.
Bicycle driver Prem Kumar K. said long trips made Tiruchi unprofitable. “I traveled four kilometers and picked up a passenger who rode only 1 kilometers. I made 22 rupees. But I didn’t get a 8 kilometers riding salary,” he said. Many drivers Hindu In cities, it is said that the app fails to accurately reflect the coverage distance to deliver what has been ordered. Although the system allows them to ask for tickets when there are problems in the record distance, they usually receive no response.
“There is neither a special ID nor a facility for workers with disabilities,” said T. Vaitheeswaran, a 36-year-old disabled deliveryman. “Cash in currency is especially problematic for drivers like him.
According to activists and policy experts, the lack of collective bargaining rights undermines the ability of performers to negotiate fair wages, unions, or improve their working conditions. These platforms also have strict rules. Bring bags to food delivery workers to carry food and t-shirts. “But we need to pay Rs 2,000 for them, even though we move time grounding in the city to advertise the company with these T-shirts and boxes,” said one of them.
Many food delivery workers complain that when restaurants mix food or fail to pack some order items, they will be punished by the company for their high fines. If such complaints are received more than 10 times, the company will block its accounts and workers must pay a fine to reopen. Mr. Muthukumaran of Tiruchi said he only had two days off a month and had recently lost four days of revenue under the new 10-minute delivery service, which required Sunday shifts. Under this system, even after working for five days, one day is missing, and the salary for the whole week is cut.
Insufficient legal framework
Labor policy researcher Shalaka Chauhan said that while the Social Security Code treats performance and platform workers as different categories and empowers them with social security programs, it lacks an understanding of the nature of the job, conditions and overall needs of workers. “The Code’s Implementation Mechanism is weak and unclear and will not grant them ’employee’ or ‘formal’ status, which prevents them from getting minimum wages, regulated working hours, collective bargaining rights, and protection from termination and workplace safety,” she said.
While entering private workspaces, especially beauty services, female gig workers are at risk of harassment and violence. Ms Chauhan noted that platforms often lack strong mechanisms to address these security issues or provide remedies. Lack of maternal welfare also leaves women with insufficient financial or work safety at critical stages.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the Alliance Budget 2025-26 that performance workers hired by online platforms will be registered on the E-SHRAM portal and have access to public health insurance under Prime Minister Jan Arogya Yojana. Experts say that although this is a gratifying first step, there is still a long way to go.
Ms Chauhan said that during extreme weather events, platforms often fail to provide adequate climate resilience measures such as cooling equipment, hydration stations, sheds or paid sick leave. “How will the company do it themselves if the government does not issue an order,” asked Mr Ambarasan, a driver of the Chennai ride-hailing app.
In December 2023, the Tamil Nadu government established the Performance Workers Welfare Committee for the Tamil Nadu Platform. Sources show that about 4,000 people have been registered, a small portion of more than 450,000 delivery workers in the state. “We are trying to push legislation, but instead we are the Welfare Council,” said S. Ramakrishna, head of the Tamil Nadu Food and Allied Delivery Personnel Alliance.
The union’s challenge
For drivers, there is no agency that negotiates employment wages. “I know it seems unfair to ask passengers to pay more Rs 100 for long distances, but the speed per kilometer is extremely low. The company refuses to modify the rates, so how should we also offset the costs,” Mr Anbarasan asked. Mr Ramakrishna explained that the temporary nature of this work makes it difficult to mobilize people. “In the first year after we registered for a union, we recruited about 2,000 members. But when we asked them to renew their membership at a small fee after the first year, we found that 67% of them left the show workforce,” he said.
Anousha P., a member of the National Coordination Committee, a member of the Workers Union of Performances and Platform Services, acknowledges that the temporary nature of the work and the challenges of many workers are for immigration. However, she believes unions can help with collective bargaining and mobilization because workers often lack human complaints. It can also facilitate direct communication between employers and employees.
New measures
Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thenarasu proposed a budget for 2025-26 on March 14, announcing a plan to provide subsidies of Rs 20,000 respectively to purchase electronic lawsuits from 2,000 registered staff. “We drive more than 120 kilometers a day. If we are electronic drivers, how will we charge?” said Mr. Ajith Kumar, who has worked in the performance workforce for four years. The state government is also planning to introduce a collective insurance plan for about 150,000 workers, covering accidental deaths and disabilities.
Tamil Nadu Labour Commissioner Sa Raman admitted that the boarding of performers on the Tamil Nadu platform was slow. He added that a common problem that workers face when accessing programs through the Welfare Commission under the Ministry of Labor is OTP verification of their Aadhaar numbers. To address this issue, authorities plan to register workers through biometric systems. The drive is coming soon. However, experts believe that at the state and national levels, regulations should authorize rest periods, health insurance and workplace safety, and have comprehensive benefits including pensions, disability coverage and maternity leave. For short-term workers, narrowing protection measures, such as proportional social security contributions, should be applied. Ms Chauhan said the platform also had to provide workers with accessible systems to report issues such as non-payment or unfair treatment.
((With input from R. Aishwaryaa from Chennai, Nacchinarkkiniyan M. S. Sundar in Tiruchi, Madurai.)
publishing – March 16, 2025 at 07:04 am
