Abhishek’s death on Hyderabad’s roads is not a tragic aberration, it is the logical outcome of a business model that prizes speed while outsourcing risk. When a 25-year-old delivery executive loses his life racing to meet a “10-minute delivery” promise, the issue is no longer individual caution or road discipline.
It is structural. It forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: India’s quick-commerce economy is thriving in a regulatory vacuum where human life is treated as a variable cost.
India celebrates its demographic dividend, yet thousands of young men powering the gig economy are pushed daily into hazardous urban conditions with little institutional protection.
They are the invisible workforce behind instant groceries and late-night conveniences, navigating broken roads, erratic traffic, monsoon flooding, and algorithmic deadlines. The question we must ask is no longer rhetorical: how many lives are we willing to trade for speed?
When Classification Becomes Control Without Responsibility
The sharpest fault line between gig workers and other unorganised workers lies in legal classification. Even in the informal economy, factories, construction sites, small establishments, workers are broadly understood as “employees.” This recognition, however imperfectly enforced, creates a chain of responsibility: safety norms, minimum wages, employer liability, and access to welfare boards or statutory benefits.
Gig workers, by contrast, are deliberately described as “partners” or “independent contractors.” This is not a neutral label, it is a strategic one. Platforms fix prices, control demand through algorithms, assign work, evaluate performance through ratings, and retain the power to deactivate workers. Yet, by denying the employer–employee relationship, they sidestep the legal obligations that come with control.
India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 does acknowledge “gig workers” and “platform workers,” promising future welfare schemes. But recognition without enforcement is symbolism, not protection. Years after its passage, the code remains largely unimplemented for gig workers, leaving millions exposed to the same risks, with no guaranteed safety net.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly flagged this indifference. While hearing matters related to unorganised workers and social security, the Court warned that government apathy toward worker welfare is “unpardonable,” especially when livelihoods and lives are at stake.
In cases concerning gig workers, the Court has pushed the Union government to explain delays and even admonished it to “pull up your socks” on implementation. These are not abstract judicial remarks, they are constitutional reminders that worker welfare cannot be indefinitely postponed.
Speed as a Safety Hazard, Not a Selling Point
Unlike factory floors or construction sites—where danger is at least acknowledged as an employer responsibility—risk in gig work is silently normalised. Delivery executives operate in some of India’s most hostile urban environments: congested roads, weak enforcement of traffic laws, poor lighting, potholes, and unpredictable weather.
Quick-commerce companies insist that technology mitigates risk—through dark stores, route optimisation, and proximity-based logistics. But Indian roads are not spreadsheets. No algorithm can account for stray animals, sudden road diversions, flooded streets, or reckless driving by others.
When “10-minute delivery” becomes the platform’s primary promise, it creates implicit pressure. For gig workers, time is not just efficiency—it is income. Faster deliveries mean more orders, more incentives, and survival in increasingly expensive cities. The so-called “choice” to drive safely collapses under economic compulsion. Safety becomes a privilege many cannot afford.
Incentives That Quietly Penalise Caution
Both unorganised labourers and gig workers face income insecurity. But gig work is uniquely shaped by incentive architecture. Earnings are tied not to hours worked, but to output—number of trips completed, peak-hour participation, or acceptance rates. Miss invisible benchmarks, and the penalties are subtle but real: loss of incentives, fewer orders, or algorithmic deprioritisation.
Companies claim they do not explicitly penalise late deliveries. Yet when branding revolves around speed, and incentives reward volume, the system itself becomes coercive. The platform absorbs growth and valuation; the worker absorbs exhaustion, injury, and, in the worst cases, death.
This is how risk is operationalised—and then quietly transferred downward.
Why Welfare Reaches the Unorganised but Skips the Gig Worker
India’s policy ecosystem does extend multiple welfare pathways to unorganised workers—through labour welfare boards, cess-funded schemes, and large-scale registration efforts like e-Shram. Courts have actively pushed governments to expand coverage, recognising that informal labour still deserves protection.
Gig workers, however, fall into a policy paradox. Their work is real, continuous, and economically essential—but responsibility for their welfare is diffused. Platforms claim they are intermediaries, not employers. The state hesitates to impose funding obligations without “clarity.” The result is paralysis.
Some states are breaking this deadlock. Rajasthan’s Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023 establishes a welfare board, mandatory registration, and a welfare fund funded by platform contributions. It is an acknowledgment that gig work is not temporary disruption—it is permanent labour, and it needs permanent protections.
Tamil Nadu’s Signal: Dignity Is Also Infrastructure
Tamil Nadu has taken a quieter but significant step by recognising gig workers as part of the city’s everyday workforce. The Greater Chennai Corporation’s initiative to create air-conditioned lounges for gig workers—offering seating, water, charging points, and toilets—is a small but powerful acknowledgement of dignity.
Rest spaces matter. They humanise work that has been rendered invisible. But they are not substitutes for accident insurance, income security, or accountability when lives are lost. Welfare cannot stop at comfort—it must extend to protection.
The Logical Indian Take
Abhishek’s death is not a traffic statistic. It is a systemic failure enabled by legal ambiguity and policy delay. India’s gig economy has mastered the art of extracting labour without absorbing responsibility.
Courts have warned against welfare apathy. Laws have gestured toward inclusion. States have shown early intent. What remains missing is enforcement—and the political will to confront powerful platforms.
Convenience cannot be built on disposability. If a company’s core promise depends on workers gambling with their lives on broken roads, that promise is not innovation—it is exploitation.
True progress is not shaving minutes off delivery times. It is ensuring that the person at the door comes home alive.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of The Logical Take, a commentary section of The Logical Indian. The views expressed are based on research, constitutional values, and the author’s analysis of publicly reported events. They are intended to encourage informed public discourse and do not seek to target or malign any community, institution, or individual.
