The Code on Social Security, 2020

1. Introduction: The Financial Safety Net

If the Code on Wages ensures a worker is paid fairly and on time, and the Industrial Relations Code governs how disputes and workforce changes are handled, the Code on Social Security, 2020 ("the SS Code") answers a third, equally essential question: what financial protection exists for a worker, and their family, against the predictable risks of working life — old age, disability, death, sickness, maternity, and unemployment? This is the Code that governs provident fund savings, gratuity on leaving a job, employee state insurance for medical care, maternity leave and benefit, and, for the very first time in Indian legal history, a dedicated, if still-developing, social security framework for gig and platform workers and workers in the unorganised sector, who together make up the overwhelming majority of India's workforce but had, until this Code, almost no formal social security coverage at all.

The SS Code is, by a wide margin, the largest of the four Labour Codes, both in the number of pre-existing laws it consolidates and in the sheer breadth of subject matter it covers, running to 164 sections across fourteen chapters. This Part cannot cover every provision in exhaustive detail, but aims to give a genuinely complete, self-explanatory account of every scheme a worker or employer in Nashik is likely to actually encounter.

2. Legislative Background and the Nine Laws Replaced

The Code on Social Security, 2020 received Presidential assent on 28 September 2020, the same day as the Industrial Relations Code and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. As with the other three Codes, its provisions take effect only upon separate notification, and its Chapters on gig and platform worker welfare, in particular, depend heavily on detailed scheme-design by the Central and State Governments that is, in material respects, still being worked out even as this guide is written.

3. Structure of the Code: Chapter by Chapter

4. Chapter III in Detail: Employees' Provident Fund (Sections 15–27)

4.1 Applicability

The Code substantially carries forward the applicability threshold from the 1952 Act: every establishment employing 20 or more employees (with the appropriate Government empowered to apply the scheme to establishments with fewer employees after giving not less than two months' notice) is covered, and, as under the old law, once an establishment is covered, it continues to be covered even if its employee strength subsequently falls below 20 — the "once covered, always covered" principle that prevents an employer from escaping provident fund obligations through workforce reduction alone.

4.2 Contribution rates

The standard contribution structure — 12% of "wages" (as defined under the Code on Wages, cross-referenced here, with the 50% cap discussed in Part 1 directly affecting the computation base) from the employer, and a matching 12% from the employee — is preserved, with the historically lower rate of 10% continuing to apply to certain categories of establishments (such as those with fewer than 20 employees, or in specifically notified distressed industries) as prescribed. Of the employer's 12% contribution, a portion (historically 8.33% of wages, subject to a wage ceiling) is diverted to the Employees' Pension Scheme rather than to the provident fund account itself, funding a monthly pension payable from the age of 58 (with options for early, reduced pension from 50, or deferred, enhanced pension up to 60), while the remainder goes to the Provident Fund proper and to the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, which provides a lump-sum insurance benefit to the nominee of an employee who dies while in service.

4.3 Voluntary coverage and the gig/platform worker question

The Code permits any establishment not otherwise covered, and any class of persons including self-employed persons, to opt into provident fund coverage voluntarily, through a mechanism the Central Government is empowered to notify — a provision of particular interest to gig and platform workers who do not have a conventional employer to make matching contributions on their behalf, and who may, depending on the scheme eventually notified, be able to build retirement savings through this voluntary route even without formal employee status.

4.4 Withdrawal, transfer and portability

The Code continues the Universal Account Number system that already allows a worker's provident fund account to move with them from employer to employer without needing to open a fresh account each time they change jobs, and preserves the circumstances under which partial withdrawal is permitted before retirement — for instance, for the purchase or construction of a house, for a daughter's or son's marriage, for medical treatment of self or specified family members, and for other prescribed purposes — alongside full withdrawal on retirement, permanent disability, or emigration.

5. Chapter IV in Detail: Employees' State Insurance (Sections 28–43)

5.1 What ESI covers

The Employees' State Insurance scheme is a comprehensive, contributory social insurance scheme funded jointly by employer and employee contributions, providing medical care (for the insured employee and, importantly, their family) through a network of ESI dispensaries and hospitals, along with cash benefits during periods of sickness, maternity, and disablement (temporary or permanent) arising from employment injury, and a dependents' benefit (a monthly payment to the family) in the event of death due to employment injury.

5.2 Applicability and contribution rates

The Code continues the threshold of 10 or more employees for applicability to a non-seasonal factory, with the appropriate Government empowered to extend coverage to establishments with fewer employees and to different classes of establishment, including, significantly, shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, and other service establishments that were not uniformly covered under the original 1948 Act's factory-centric framework. Contribution rates (as periodically revised by the ESI Corporation, most recently standing at a combined rate considerably lower than the historical rates after a 2019 reduction aimed at easing the compliance burden on smaller establishments and improving worker take-home pay) are notified separately and are not fixed in the Code's own text, giving the Corporation flexibility to adjust rates as the scheme's financial position requires.

5.3 Extension to plantation and hazardous-process workers, and to all districts

The Code specifically empowers extension of ESI coverage to employees of plantations (who, under the Plantations Labour Act, historically received employer-funded medical care directly rather than through the ESI mechanism) at the option of the employer, and continues the long-running, still-incomplete process of geographically extending ESI coverage to every district in the country, since historically many rural and remote districts had no ESI dispensary or hospital infrastructure, leaving covered workers with contributions deducted but limited practical access to the medical care those contributions were meant to fund.

6. Chapter V in Detail: Gratuity (Sections 44–55)

6.1 Eligibility and the continuous service requirement

Gratuity is a lump-sum benefit payable by an employer to an employee in recognition of long and continuous service, payable on superannuation, retirement, resignation, death, or disablement due to accident or disease. The Code continues the core eligibility rule from the 1972 Act: an employee must ordinarily have rendered continuous service of not less than five years with the employer, except that this five-year requirement is waived where the termination of employment is due to death or disablement, in which case gratuity is payable regardless of the length of service actually rendered.

6.2 Gratuity for fixed-term employees: a significant new protection

One of the SS Code's most consequential and widely discussed changes is found here, and it connects directly back to the Industrial Relations Code's formal recognition of fixed-term employment discussed in Part 2 of this guide. Under the old Payment of Gratuity Act, a fixed-term employee whose contract ended after, say, three years of service would typically receive no gratuity at all, since the five-year continuous-service threshold was rarely met. The SS Code's provisions, read with the IR Code's fixed-term employment framework, now entitle a fixed-term employee to gratuity on a proportionate basis, calculated according to the period of service actually rendered, even where that period is well short of five years — a change specifically intended to ensure that the growing use of fixed-term contracts does not become a backdoor mechanism for employers to avoid gratuity liability that would otherwise accrue to an equivalent permanent employee.

6.3 Computation of gratuity

The formula itself — 15 days' wages (again computed on the Code on Wages' "wages" definition, with its 50% cap) for every completed year of service, or part thereof in excess of six months — is retained from the 1972 Act, as is the statutory ceiling on the maximum gratuity payable (₹20 lakh, as last revised, though this ceiling is subject to periodic government revision and should be checked for its current figure), and the provision allowing an employer to offer a more generous gratuity scheme than the statutory minimum, which continues to bind the employer if already in place or voluntarily offered.

6.4 Forfeiture of gratuity

Gratuity payable to an employee may be wholly or partially forfeited where the employee's service has been terminated for an act of wilful omission or negligence causing damage or loss to the employer's property, to the extent of the damage or loss caused, or wholly forfeited where the termination is for an act of riotous or disorderly conduct, or any act involving moral turpitude, committed in the course of employment — but, consistent with long-standing judicial interpretation, forfeiture requires a proper finding of such misconduct, generally following a fair domestic enquiry of the kind discussed in Part 2 of this guide, rather than a bare, unproven allegation.

7. Chapter VI in Detail: Maternity Benefit (Sections 56–67)

7.1 Duration of leave

The Code continues the paid maternity leave entitlement most recently set by the 2017 amendment to the Maternity Benefit Act: 26 weeks of paid leave for the first two children, reducible to 12 weeks for the third and subsequent child, with the leave period divisible as up to 8 weeks before the expected date of delivery and the remainder after. A woman who legally adopts a child below three months of age, or a "commissioning mother" (a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in another woman through surrogacy), is entitled to 12 weeks of maternity benefit from the date the child is handed over.

7.2 Work-from-home option and crèche facility

The Code continues the provision allowing an employer and employee to mutually agree to a work-from-home arrangement after the expiry of the 26-week leave period, where the nature of work permits, and continues the requirement that every establishment employing 50 or more employees provide a crèche facility within a prescribed distance, with the woman permitted four visits to the crèche in a working day, including her rest interval — a specific, numbers-based obligation that distinguishes this Code from many of its predecessor provisions by directly addressing a practical barrier (childcare) to women remaining in the workforce after childbirth, rather than addressing pay and leave alone.

7.3 Protection against dismissal

An employer cannot discharge or dismiss a woman during, or on account of, her absence on maternity leave, cannot vary her conditions of service to her disadvantage during this period, and must not require her to undertake arduous work, work involving long hours of standing, or work likely to interfere with her pregnancy, normal development of the foetus, or likely to cause a miscarriage, for a specified period before her expected delivery date.

8. Chapter VII in Detail: Employees' Compensation (Sections 68–82)

This Chapter addresses compensation for workers injured, or the dependents of workers killed, by an accident arising out of and in the course of employment, continuing the framework of the 1923 Act, which remains relevant for the substantial number of workers, including many unorganised-sector workers, not covered by the ESI scheme's employment-injury benefit. Compensation is computed on a formula tied to the worker's monthly wages, age (through a notified "relevant factor" table that accounts for life expectancy and the present value of future loss), and the nature of the injury — death, permanent total disablement, permanent partial disablement, or temporary disablement — with specific percentages prescribed for different categories of permanent partial disablement (for instance, loss of a thumb, a finger, or an eye) in the Code's Schedule, continuing a long-standing and highly detailed actuarial approach to injury compensation that the drafters chose not to disturb.

9. Chapter VIII: Building Workers' Welfare Cess (Sections 83–91)

Construction and building work has long been recognised as among the most hazardous and least formally protected categories of employment in India, with a highly mobile, often inter-state migrant workforce that conventional, establishment-based social security schemes struggle to reach. The Code continues the cess-based funding mechanism first introduced in 1996: a cess, generally 1% of the cost of construction, is levied on every building or construction project above a specified cost threshold, and the proceeds fund State-level Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Boards, which register construction workers and provide them with benefits such as accident assistance, pension, housing loan assistance, and educational scholarships for their children, financed by this dedicated, project-linked revenue stream rather than by ordinary employer-employee contributions.

10. Chapter IX: Social Security for Unorganised, Gig and Platform Workers (Sections 92–111)

This is, without question, the single most talked-about and, in terms of its eventual real-world impact, potentially most far-reaching Chapter in the entire SS Code, because it is the first time Indian law has formally recognised and attempted to extend social security coverage to gig workers and platform workers — categories of worker that simply did not exist in any significant number when the nine earlier laws this Code replaces were drafted.

10.1 Who is a gig worker, and who is a platform worker?

Section 2(35) defines a gig worker as a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement outside the traditional employer-employee relationship, and earns from such activities — a deliberately broad, status-neutral definition designed to capture the reality that a gig worker's legal relationship with the business they work for or through is, by its nature, not a conventional employment relationship, without that fact being treated as disqualifying the worker from any social security protection whatsoever, as had effectively been the case before this Code. Section 2(61) separately defines a platform worker as a person engaged in platform work — meaning a work arrangement outside the traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems, or to provide specific services, in exchange for payment.

10.2 The National Social Security Board for Gig and Platform Workers

Section 6(6) of the Code specifically provides for a National Social Security Board for gig workers and platform workers, with representation for aggregators (the platforms themselves), gig workers, and the Central Government, tasked with recommending and monitoring suitable social security schemes for these categories, including schemes for life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, and any other benefit the Central Government may determine.

10.3 Aggregator contributions: a genuinely novel funding mechanism

Perhaps the single most important practical mechanism in this Chapter is Section 114's provision empowering the Central Government to direct every "aggregator" (the Code's term for the digital platform businesses — ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery, e-commerce logistics, content and professional services platforms, and similar businesses — that engage gig and platform workers) to contribute to the Social Security Fund an amount between 1% and 2% of their annual turnover, subject to a cap of 5% of the amount paid or payable by the aggregator to gig and platform workers. This is a wholly new funding model, deliberately designed around the reality that a gig or platform worker typically has no single, identifiable "employer" who can be made to contribute a matching provident fund or ESI contribution in the conventional way — instead, the aggregator businesses that profit from these workers' labour are required to fund a dedicated welfare pool, even though the underlying legal relationship between the aggregator and the worker is not treated as one of employment.

10.4 Registration through the e-Shram portal

To make any of this workable in practice, unorganised sector workers, gig workers and platform workers are required to be registered on a national database — in practice, implemented through the e-Shram portal launched by the Ministry of Labour and Employment — on the basis of self-declaration, through Aadhaar-based verification, to enable targeted delivery of welfare schemes and benefits. This registration infrastructure is a precondition for the practical operation of the entire Chapter IX framework, since without a reliable record of who these workers are and where they are located, the welfare schemes the National and State Boards design cannot actually reach their intended beneficiaries.

Current status (verify before relying on this): as of the drafting of this guide, the specific social security schemes for gig and platform workers contemplated by Chapter IX — their benefit structures, the exact aggregator contribution percentages actually notified, and their operational rollout in Maharashtra specifically — remain substantially a work in progress, with several states (reportedly including Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Rajasthan) having taken their own, sometimes more detailed, state-level legislative or scheme-based steps on gig worker welfare in parallel with the central framework. Any Nashik-based gig worker, or any aggregator business operating in Maharashtra, should seek the most current, specific guidance on what scheme, if any, is presently operative and what contribution obligations currently bind them, since this is one of the fastest-moving and least settled areas of the entire Labour Code reform.

11. Offences and Penalties (Sections 136–139)

12. Comparison Table: Benefit Snapshot, Old Law vs the SS Code

13. Social Security Organisations: Who Runs These Schemes

13.1 Central Board of Trustees (Provident Fund)

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) continues to be governed by a Central Board of Trustees, with representation for the Central Government, State Governments, employers, and employees, responsible for administering the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, the Employees' Pension Scheme, and the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme. Section 5 of the Code continues this tripartite governance structure, reflecting a deliberate continuity with the institutional architecture that has administered provident fund savings for Indian workers since 1952.

13.2 Employees' State Insurance Corporation

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation similarly continues as a body corporate with tripartite representation, responsible for administering the medical care and cash benefit schemes described in Section 5 of this Part, through its network of regional offices, dispensaries, and hospitals.

13.3 National Social Security Board and State Unorganised Workers' Boards

For unorganised workers generally (as distinct from the specific gig/platform worker sub-category), the Code provides for a National Social Security Board to recommend welfare schemes, and for State Governments to constitute State Unorganised Workers' Boards, or to entrust the function to an existing State Welfare Board, to register unorganised workers and recommend and monitor schemes suited to local conditions.

14. Detailed Comparison with the Nine Repealed Laws

14.1 From the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952

The 1952 Act's basic architecture — compulsory contribution for covered establishments, the "once covered, always covered" principle, and the three-scheme structure (Provident Fund, Pension, Deposit Linked Insurance) — survives essentially intact. The most consequential change is not to the Act's own machinery but to the wage base on which contributions are calculated, since the Code on Wages' Section 2(y) definition, with its 50% cap on excluded allowances, now governs what counts as "basic wages" for provident fund purposes, generally widening the contribution base compared to salary structures that had, over the decades, drifted toward a narrow basic-pay component specifically to minimise PF liability.

14.2 From the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948

The 1948 Act's factory-centric origin meant that, for decades, large categories of service-sector workers — in shops, restaurants, cinemas, and similar establishments — fell outside ESI coverage unless a State Government specifically extended the Act to such establishments through a separate notification process, a patchwork that left coverage inconsistent across states and sectors. The Code's broader, more flexible extension powers are intended to normalise and accelerate this extension process, though, as with several other provisions discussed in this guide, actual coverage still depends on specific notification for each class of establishment and each district.

14.3 From the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972

Beyond the fixed-term employee proportionate-gratuity change discussed in Section 6.2, the Code's gratuity provisions are a close continuation of the 1972 Act, including the five-year continuous service rule for ordinary cases, the 15-days-per-completed-year formula, the forfeiture provisions, and the statutory ceiling on maximum gratuity payable (subject to periodic revision by government notification, most recently increased to ₹20 lakh, a figure that should always be checked for currency before being relied upon).

14.4 From the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (as amended in 2017)

The Code essentially codifies, within the broader framework, the substantial strengthening of maternity benefit that Parliament had already enacted through the 2017 amendment to the standalone 1961 Act — the extension from 12 to 26 weeks of leave, the crèche facility requirement, and the work-from-home option — rather than introducing significant new substantive change in this specific area, meaning employers who had already achieved compliance with the 2017 amendment should find the SS Code's maternity provisions a largely familiar continuation.

14.5 From the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008

This is the clearest case of a predecessor law being not merely consolidated but substantially superseded in practical ambition. The 2008 Act was, in the assessment of most labour economists and policy analysts, largely aspirational in its real-world effect: it required State Governments to formulate welfare schemes for unorganised workers but created comparatively weak institutional machinery and funding mechanisms to ensure this actually happened at scale. The SS Code's Chapter IX, with its dedicated National Social Security Board specifically for gig and platform workers, its aggregator-contribution funding mechanism, and its e-Shram registration infrastructure, represents a considerably more concrete, resourced attempt to achieve what the 2008 Act had largely left to each State's own initiative and limited budget.

15. State-Level Implementation: What to Expect in Maharashtra

Social security coverage under this Code depends on a combination of central notifications (particularly for EPFO and ESI Corporation coverage, which operate through centrally-administered, pan-India schemes) and state-specific action (particularly for the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board, the State Unorganised Workers' Board, and any state-specific gig worker welfare measures). Points to monitor specifically for Maharashtra include:

• The current geographic extension of ESI coverage across Maharashtra's districts, since full coverage of every district, including more remote parts of Nashik division, has historically lagged coverage in major metropolitan areas.
• The functioning and benefit structure of the Maharashtra Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board, which registers construction workers in the state and administers cess-funded benefits — a scheme of direct relevance to the large construction workforce active in and around Nashik's growing residential and industrial development.
• Whether Maharashtra has introduced, or is developing, its own state-specific gig worker welfare legislation or scheme (several states have moved in parallel with the central Code on this specific point, given the central framework's slower, still-developing implementation), and how such a state measure interacts with the central Chapter IX framework once both are operative.
• The current EPF and ESI contribution rates and wage ceilings applicable to establishments in the state, since these are revised periodically by the respective central bodies rather than fixed in the Code's own text.

16. Criticism, Debate and Open Questions

16.1 Concerns about the gig worker framework

While the formal recognition of gig and platform workers as a category entitled to some form of social security is widely welcomed as an overdue acknowledgment of changed labour market realities, several specific criticisms have been raised. Labour economists and some gig-worker advocacy groups have pointed out that the Code deliberately stops short of classifying gig and platform workers as "employees" of the aggregators they work through, meaning the much more extensive protections available to a conventional employee — minimum wage guarantees under the Code on Wages, retrenchment protections under the IR Code, and full ESI and EPF coverage under this Code's earlier Chapters — do not automatically extend to gig workers, who instead receive only the specific, more limited benefits the National Social Security Board eventually designs and the aggregator contribution funds. Critics argue this risks entrenching a permanently second-tier category of worker protection for an already fast-growing share of the workforce, while supporters argue that formally classifying gig workers as employees would destroy the flexible engagement model that both the aggregator platforms and many workers themselves value, and that a bespoke, lighter-touch social security framework is the more realistic and sustainable path forward.

16.2 Concerns about aggregator contribution design

The 1-2% of turnover (capped at 5% of worker payments) formula for aggregator contributions has itself been debated: some industry representatives have argued the turnover-based formula could disproportionately burden newer, high-revenue-but-low-margin platforms compared to established ones, while worker representatives have argued the 5% cap on worker-payment-linked contribution could, in absolute terms, still leave individual gig workers with a thinner social security contribution than a conventional employee's combined 24% (12% employer plus 12% employee) provident fund contribution alone, before even accounting for ESI and gratuity.

16.3 Open implementation questions

As of this guide's drafting, significant practical questions remain unresolved at the national level, including: the precise benefit structure (health insurance, life and disability cover, old-age pension, or some combination) that gig and platform worker contributions will actually fund once schemes are finalised; how a worker who works across multiple aggregator platforms in a given period (a common pattern, since many gig workers do not work exclusively for a single platform) will have contributions from each platform aggregated into a single, portable benefit record; and how the Code's central framework will ultimately reconcile with the various state-specific gig worker welfare measures some states have introduced in the interim, to avoid either duplicate contribution obligations for aggregators or gaps in coverage for workers caught between two overlapping, imperfectly coordinated systems.

17. Illustrative Worked Examples

Example A: Gratuity for a fixed-term employee

Priya (illustrative name) is engaged on a 3-year fixed-term contract with a company, at a monthly "wages" figure (as defined under the Code on Wages) of ₹40,000. Under the old Payment of Gratuity Act, since her engagement falls well short of the 5-year continuous service threshold, she would ordinarily have received no gratuity at all on completion of her contract. Under the SS Code's proportionate-gratuity rule for fixed-term employees, she is instead entitled to gratuity calculated at 15 days' wages per completed year of her 3-year term: 15/30 × ₹40,000 = ₹20,000 per year, × 3 years = ₹60,000, payable to her even though she never reached the old 5-year threshold.

Example B: Employer PF contribution under the new wage definition

Continuing the earlier worked example from Part 1 of this guide, an employee whose statutory "wages" figure (after applying the 50% cap) works out to ₹25,000 per month, rather than a narrower ₹15,000 basic-pay figure, will now have PF contributions computed on the higher ₹25,000 base (subject to the separate, periodically-revised wage ceiling that applies for certain PF purposes), meaning both the employee's own 12% contribution and the employer's matching 12% contribution are correspondingly larger each month than they would have been under a salary structure engineered around a narrow basic-pay figure — illustrating, once again, how deeply the Code on Wages' definitional choices, explained in Part 1, ripple through this Code's benefit calculations.

Example C: A food-delivery gig worker under Chapter IX (illustrative, pending final scheme design)

Ramesh (illustrative name) works as a delivery partner for a food-delivery aggregator platform operating in Nashik, earning payments per delivery rather than a fixed monthly wage, with no conventional employer-employee relationship recognised between him and the platform. Under the pre-Code legal position, Ramesh had no social security coverage of any kind arising from this work — no PF, no ESI, no gratuity, nothing. Under the Code's Chapter IX framework, once Maharashtra's implementing scheme is fully operational, Ramesh would register on the e-Shram portal, the aggregator platform would contribute a percentage of its turnover (or of payments made to Ramesh and similarly placed delivery partners, subject to the prescribed cap) into the Social Security Fund, and Ramesh would become eligible for whatever specific benefits (illustratively, accident insurance, health coverage, or a contributory pension option) the National Social Security Board has by then designed and notified for his category of worker — a benefit structure this guide cannot describe with precision today because, as flagged throughout this Part, it remains substantially under development.

18. How to Claim Each Benefit: Step-by-Step Guidance

18.1 Claiming provident fund withdrawal or transfer

1. Ensure your Universal Account Number (UAN) is activated and linked to your Aadhaar, PAN, and bank account.
2. For a transfer on changing jobs, your new employer typically initiates the transfer request through the EPFO's online portal; you should verify your previous employer has correctly marked your "date of exit" to enable this.
3. For a withdrawal (full, on retirement/leaving the workforce, or partial, for an authorised purpose such as housing, marriage, or medical treatment), file the appropriate claim form through the EPFO member portal, with the specified supporting documents for the purpose claimed.
4. Track your claim status online, and escalate to the regional EPFO office, or through the EPFO's grievance portal, if there is undue delay.

18.2 Claiming ESI medical and cash benefits

1. Ensure your employer has registered you and is depositing contributions, reflected in your ESI Insurance Number (IP Number).
2. For medical treatment, visit the ESI dispensary or hospital to which you are mapped, carrying your ESI card/Pehchan card.
3. For sickness, maternity, or disablement cash benefit, obtain the prescribed medical certificate from the ESI medical officer, and file the benefit claim through the ESI branch office or the online portal, as applicable.
4. For a dependents' benefit claim following a fatal employment injury, the family should approach the ESI branch office with the death certificate and proof of the employment-injury circumstances.

18.3 Claiming gratuity

1. On leaving employment (by retirement, resignation, or otherwise), submit a written application to your employer in the prescribed form (Form I under the earlier Rules, generally continued in substance), as soon as the gratuity becomes payable.
2. The employer is required to determine the amount of gratuity and give notice to the employee, specifying the amount, within 30 days of it becoming payable, and must pay the gratuity within 30 days of it becoming due, failing which interest becomes payable on the delayed amount.
3. If the employer disputes the amount, or your eligibility, or fails to pay, you may apply to the Controlling Authority appointed under the Code, who has the power to direct payment of the gratuity due, with interest and, in appropriate cases, a penalty on the employer.
4. An appeal against the Controlling Authority's order lies to the appellate authority prescribed under the Code, within the time limit specified.

18.4 Claiming maternity benefit

1. Give your employer written notice of your pregnancy and the date from which you intend to take maternity leave, generally not more than the permitted number of weeks before your expected delivery date.
2. Submit the required proof (a certificate confirming pregnancy or, after delivery, proof of the birth) as prescribed.
3. Receive maternity benefit payment at the rate of your average daily wage for the actual period of absence, paid by your employer directly (for employers above the ESI threshold and contribution requirements, this may instead run partly through the ESI mechanism, depending on your specific coverage).
4. If your employer refuses or delays payment, or takes adverse action against you during or on account of your maternity leave, you may approach the Inspector-cum-Facilitator or the appropriate authority designated under the Code for enforcement.

18.5 Registering as an unorganised, gig or platform worker

1. Visit the e-Shram portal (or a designated Common Service Centre, where self-registration online is not convenient) with your Aadhaar and bank account details.
2. Complete self-declaration of your occupation, skill, and relevant personal details as the registration process requires.
3. Receive your Universal Account Number for unorganised workers (a distinct UAN from the EPFO one, specific to this registration), which becomes the basis for targeting and delivering whatever schemes are notified for your category of work.
4. Periodically update your registration details, and monitor official announcements (including through Lex Monk's Free Legal Resources updates) for newly notified schemes for which you may become eligible.

19. Compliance Checklist for Employers

1. Confirm your establishment's coverage thresholds for EPF (20 or more employees), ESI (10 or more employees, or as separately notified for your class of establishment), gratuity (any establishment employing 10 or more persons, continuing the threshold from the 1972 Act), and maternity benefit crèche facility (50 or more employees).
2. Recompute your payroll's statutory wage base using the Code on Wages' Section 2(y) definition, with the 50% cap, since this directly determines your correct PF and gratuity liability, and an incorrect computation exposes you to recovery proceedings and penalty, not merely an accounting adjustment.
3. Review your fixed-term employment contracts for correct proportionate gratuity accrual, rather than assuming, as under the old law, that fixed-term staff are categorically excluded from gratuity.
4. Ensure maternity benefit administration is current with the 26-week/12-week structure, the crèche facility requirement if above the 50-employee threshold, and the non-discrimination and non-dismissal protections during maternity leave.
5. If you are an aggregator platform engaging gig or platform workers, monitor the finalisation of the Chapter IX scheme and contribution requirements specifically applicable to your sector and to Maharashtra, since this is an evolving compliance obligation rather than a settled one.
6. Maintain the prescribed registers and records for each scheme separately (PF, ESI, gratuity, maternity benefit), since an Inspector-cum-Facilitator's audit will examine compliance scheme by scheme even though enforcement is now unified under a single inspecting authority across all four Labour Codes.
7. Pay gratuity within the 30-day statutory window once it becomes due, to avoid interest liability and potential proceedings before the Controlling Authority.

20. Interaction with the Other Three Labour Codes

This Code's reliance on the Code on Wages' "wages" definition for PF and gratuity computation has already been discussed at length. Equally important is its relationship with the Industrial Relations Code: a retrenched worker's entitlement to retrenchment compensation under the IR Code (Part 2 of this guide) is a wholly separate, additional entitlement from any gratuity payable on the same termination under this Code — an employer cannot argue that paying retrenchment compensation satisfies the gratuity obligation, or vice versa, since the two payments address different purposes (retrenchment compensation addresses the loss of the job itself; gratuity rewards the accumulated length of service) and are computed under different chapters of different Codes. Separately, this Code's maternity benefit provisions on safe working conditions during pregnancy dovetail with the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code's broader working-conditions framework (Part 4 of this guide), which governs matters such as permissible working hours and rest intervals that bear directly on how an employer must accommodate a pregnant employee's work schedule even before her maternity leave formally begins.

21. Frequently Asked Questions

If I resign after 4 years and 8 months of service, am I entitled to gratuity?

For an ordinary (non-fixed-term) employee, the general rule requires 5 years of continuous service, and 4 years and 8 months would, on a strict reading, fall short of this threshold. However, courts have, in specific past cases, taken a liberal view of what constitutes a "year" of continuous service for employees who worked substantially all of the days in each year (240 days or more, under the continuous-service computation rules), sometimes treating 4 years and 240-plus days in the fifth year as sufficient. Given the fact-specific and still-developing nature of this question under the new Code, anyone close to this threshold should consult an advocate before resigning, rather than assuming either outcome.

Can my employer refuse to pay maternity benefit because I am on a fixed-term contract?

No. Maternity benefit entitlement under the Code is tied to your status as a woman employee who has worked for the qualifying period (80 days in the 12 months immediately preceding the expected delivery date), not to whether your contract is permanent or fixed-term, and an employer cannot lawfully deny maternity benefit, or dismiss you, on the ground that your fixed term happens to run through your pregnancy or leave period.

Is a gig worker entitled to the same PF and gratuity as a regular employee?

Not automatically. Because gig and platform workers are not classified as "employees" in the conventional sense under the Code, they do not automatically receive the EPF, ESI, and gratuity entitlements described in Chapters III to V of this Part. They instead fall under the distinct Chapter IX framework, with benefits dependent on the specific schemes the National Social Security Board designs and the aggregator-funded Social Security Fund finances, which, as repeatedly flagged in this Part, remains under active development.

What happens to my ESI benefits if I change jobs?

ESI coverage is tied to your current employment and contributions; on changing jobs, if your new employer is also ESI-covered, your coverage effectively continues (subject to fresh registration formalities at the new establishment), but there is no "portable account" in the same sense as the EPF's Universal Account Number — your benefit entitlement in any given contribution period depends on contributions made during that period, following the ESI scheme's own contribution-and-benefit-period rules.

My employer has deducted PF from my salary but I suspect it has not been deposited. What can I do?

This is treated extremely seriously under the Code: deducting the employee's PF contribution and failing to deposit it (along with the employer's own matching contribution) attracts one of the most severe penalties in the entire Labour Code framework — imprisonment of up to 3 years (with a minimum of 1 year) and a fine of up to ₹1,00,000. You should check your UAN passbook online to confirm whether deposits are being made, and if not, file a complaint with the regional EPFO office, which has recovery powers akin to those of an Income Tax Officer for recovering unpaid dues, including attachment of the employer's bank accounts and property.

22. Key Takeaways

1. The SS Code consolidates nine earlier laws covering provident fund, ESI, gratuity, maternity benefit, employees' compensation, building workers' welfare, and unorganised workers' social security.
2. The Code on Wages' "wages" definition, with its 50% cap, now governs PF and gratuity computation, generally widening the contribution and benefit base compared to narrowly-structured basic-pay figures.
3. Fixed-term employees are, for the first time, entitled to proportionate gratuity regardless of whether they meet the ordinary 5-year continuous-service threshold.
4. Maternity benefit continues at 26 weeks (12 for the third child), with crèche facility and work-from-home provisions for qualifying establishments.
5. Chapter IX creates, for the first time in Indian law, a dedicated (if still-developing) social security framework for gig and platform workers, funded through a novel aggregator-turnover-linked contribution mechanism rather than conventional employer-employee contributions.
6. Registration on the e-Shram portal is the gateway through which unorganised, gig, and platform workers become eligible for whatever specific schemes are, or will be, notified for their category.
7. As with the other three Codes, the precise, current, operative status of many provisions — especially the gig/platform worker framework — must be verified against the latest Central and Maharashtra notifications before being relied upon.

23. Glossary of Key Terms Used in This Part

24. Timeline at a Glance

25. Quick Reference: Important Section Numbers

Please note: the precise section numbers for Chapter IX provisions (gig and platform worker framework) in particular are liable to cross-reference and renumbering nuances as this Chapter's implementing Rules are finalised. Treat the numbers above as a reliable starting point for locating the relevant provision, but verify the exact, current section number against the Gazette text or a current annotated edition of the Code before citing it in any formal document or proceeding.

26. A Closing Perspective

The Code on Social Security, 2020 is, in many ways, the Labour Code that will be judged most by what happens next rather than by what it says today. Its provident fund, ESI, gratuity, and maternity benefit chapters are, for the most part, careful consolidations and modest strengthenings of a social security architecture India has operated, with real success for the organised-sector workforce it reaches, for many decades. Its Chapter IX, by contrast, is a genuinely new experiment — an attempt to extend even a basic social security floor to a category of worker that the Indian economy has only recently begun to employ at scale, and for whom no comparable legal framework previously existed anywhere in the country's history. Whether that experiment succeeds will depend less on the text of the Code itself than on the specific schemes, contribution rates, and administrative machinery the National Social Security Board, the Central Government, and the Government of Maharashtra actually put in place and enforce in the years ahead — a process every reader of this guide, worker and employer alike, would do well to follow closely as it continues to unfold. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, which governs the physical conditions — hours, leave, safety, and welfare facilities — under which all of the financial protections described in this Part are meant to be earned.

Before turning to those special provisions, it is worth pausing on one more general point: the SS Code, unlike the Code on Wages and the Industrial Relations Code, was drafted with an unusually wide eye toward the future shape of India's labour market, not merely its present or past shape. Its gig and platform worker chapter in particular reflects a legislative bet that a meaningful share of future employment growth in India will not look like a conventional factory or office job at all, and that social security law needed to get ahead of this shift rather than respond to it years after the fact, as had arguably happened with earlier laws struggling to catch up with the growth of contract labour and casualisation in previous decades.

27. Special Provisions Worth Knowing in Detail

27.1 The International Worker provisions

The Code continues special provisions for "international workers" — broadly, foreign nationals working in India for an establishment covered by the EPF scheme, and Indian employees working abroad in a country with which India has a Social Security Agreement — designed to avoid double contribution liability in both countries and to ensure portability of social security benefits for workers who move across borders in the course of their career. India has, over the years, entered into such bilateral Social Security Agreements with a number of countries, and an employer sending an Indian employee to work temporarily in one of these countries, or receiving a posted worker from one of them, should specifically check whether a Certificate of Coverage under the relevant agreement can be obtained to avoid duplicate contributions.

27.2 Exemption provisions

The Code continues to allow an establishment to apply for exemption from the statutory EPF scheme where it maintains its own provident fund trust offering benefits at least as favourable as the statutory scheme, subject to the appropriate Government's approval and continued compliance oversight — a long-standing feature that allows large, well-resourced employers with established private trusts (common among older public sector undertakings, large private companies, and some multinational corporations) to continue operating their own, often more generous, schemes rather than being folded entirely into the EPFO's centralised scheme.

27.3 Nomination and the rights of dependents

Every employee covered under the EPF, ESI, and gratuity provisions is required to file a nomination, specifying the family member(s) entitled to receive the accumulated balance, insurance benefit, or gratuity in the event of the employee's death before these amounts are otherwise paid out. The Code continues the protective rule that, where a valid nomination exists in favour of a family member, this takes precedence over any conflicting disposition the employee may have attempted to make by way of a will, reflecting a deliberate policy choice to keep these specific retirement and death benefits within the immediate family circle regardless of how the employee's other property is willed.

28. Common Employer Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

29. Common Employee/Worker Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

• Not checking your UAN passbook regularly. Many employees only discover a PF deposit shortfall years later, by which time recovery, while still possible, becomes administratively harder. Check your passbook at least once a quarter.
• Assuming you are automatically covered by ESI/EPF without verifying your payslip and registration. Ask your HR department to confirm your UAN and ESI Insurance Number explicitly rather than assuming coverage.
• Forgetting to file a nomination, or failing to update it after a major life event (marriage, birth of a child, death of a previously nominated family member). An outdated or absent nomination can cause real delay and hardship for your family in the event of your death.
• Not applying for gratuity promptly on leaving employment. While the employer has an independent duty to determine and offer gratuity, applying in writing yourself, and keeping a copy, creates a clear record that protects you if a dispute later arises over timing or amount.
• As a gig or platform worker, not registering on the e-Shram portal. Since scheme benefits under Chapter IX will be delivered through this registration, failing to register means missing out on whatever benefits eventually become available, potentially for a considerable period after they are first notified.

30. A Note on Verifying Current Figures

Throughout this Part, specific figures — the ₹20 lakh gratuity ceiling, the 12% PF contribution rate, the 10-or-20-employee coverage thresholds, and the 1-2% aggregator contribution range — have been stated as they stood at the time of this guide's preparation. Every one of these figures is subject to periodic revision by government notification, in some cases quite frequently (ESI contribution rates, for instance, have been revised more than once in the past decade), and none of them should be treated as permanently fixed. A reader relying on this guide for an actual claim, compliance decision, or dispute should always cross-check the current figure against the latest official notification from the EPFO, the ESI Corporation, or the Ministry of Labour and Employment, as applicable, or consult a qualified advocate, rather than relying solely on the figures stated in this document, however carefully they were researched at the time of writing.

31. Illustrative Case Study: A Small Nashik Manufacturing Unit's Compliance Journey

To tie together the various threads of this Part, consider a hypothetical mid-sized manufacturing unit in the Nashik industrial area, employing 45 workers, which has historically kept its payroll structured with a low basic pay (around ₹8,000) and a large "special allowance" (around ₹14,000) for most of its workforce, partly to keep PF and ESI contribution costs manageable. Under the SS Code, read together with the Code on Wages' definition explained in Part 1 of this guide, this structure now falls foul of the 50% cap — the special allowance, at 64% of the ₹22,000 total, exceeds the permissible 50% threshold for exclusions, meaning ₹3,000 of the special allowance must be added back to the statutory wage base for PF purposes, raising the computation base from ₹8,000 to ₹11,000. This single correction increases the unit's own matching PF contribution obligation for each of its 45 workers by a modest but real amount each month, and also raises the gratuity accrual base for every worker who eventually qualifies.

Separately, this unit employs five workers on one-year fixed-term contracts to handle seasonal order spikes. Before the Code, these workers, cycling through one-year contracts year after year, might never individually accrue five years of continuous service with the unit (even if, collectively, several of them had worked on-and-off for the unit across many seasons), and would typically receive no gratuity at all on each contract's expiry. Under the SS Code's proportionate-gratuity rule for fixed-term employees, each of these five workers is now entitled to gratuity calculated on their actual one-year term, a modest amount per worker but a real, newly-enforceable entitlement that did not exist for them before.

Finally, because this unit employs 45 workers — above the ESI Act's 10-employee threshold but below the Standing Orders and lay-off/retrenchment permission threshold of 300 under the Industrial Relations Code discussed in Part 2 — it must ensure ESI coverage and contribution for its workforce (and, if it ever needs to reduce staff, can do so with notice and compensation alone, without needing prior government permission, since it falls well below that separate 300-worker threshold). This single hypothetical unit illustrates how all three Codes covered so far in this guide — Wages, Industrial Relations, and Social Security — interact in the day-to-day reality of even a modestly-sized Nashik employer, and why a compliance review genuinely has to look across all three Codes together, not at any one of them in isolation.

32. Preparing for an SS Code Inspection or Audit

1. Keep your UAN/PF remittance records, ESI contribution records, and gratuity payment registers organised and readily accessible, since an Inspector-cum-Facilitator conducting a Social Security Code inspection will typically examine all three together.
2. Reconcile your payroll wage structure against the Code on Wages' 50% rule before an inspection, not during one, since retroactive correction of years of under-contribution can carry significant cumulative liability plus interest and penalty.
3. Maintain nomination forms for every covered employee on file, updated as personal circumstances change, since an inspector may specifically check for the presence and currency of these records.
4. If you are an aggregator engaging gig or platform workers, maintain clear records of payments made to such workers and be prepared to demonstrate your basis for computing (or, if not yet applicable in your state, your monitoring of) any Chapter IX contribution obligation.
5. Respond promptly and in writing to any notice or query from the Inspector-cum-Facilitator, since the Code's emphasis on facilitation rather than pure punitive inspection generally rewards establishments that engage constructively and correct genuine, inadvertent lapses when first identified, rather than those that resist or delay engagement with the inspecting authority.

33. Final Note on Using This Part

This Guide has traced the Code on Social Security, 2020 from the nine separate laws it consolidates, through provident fund, ESI, gratuity, employees' compensation, building workers' welfare, and the genuinely new gig and platform worker framework, to practical guidance on claiming each benefit, avoiding common mistakes, and preparing for an inspection. Of the four Parts in this guide, this is the one where the gap between the Code's text and its full, operative reality on the ground is widest, particularly for the Chapter IX gig and platform worker provisions, and readers should treat the specific schemes, rates, and thresholds described here as a snapshot of a framework still actively taking shape, to be checked against the latest Central Government, EPFO, ESI Corporation, and Maharashtra State Government notifications before being relied upon for any significant financial or legal decision. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, which governs the physical, day-to-day conditions of work — hours, leave, safety equipment, and welfare facilities — within which every provident fund contribution, gratuity accrual, and maternity benefit described.

34. One Last Practical Reminder

If there is a single habit this Guide would most like every reader to adopt, it is this: check your own UAN passbook, ESI record, and nomination details today, rather than waiting for a crisis, a job change, or a retirement to discover a gap. The social security architecture this Part has described is genuinely comprehensive on paper, spanning retirement savings, medical care, income replacement during sickness and maternity, compensation for injury, and, increasingly, coverage for workers outside the conventional employment relationship altogether — but, as with every right described across this entire guide, it protects you in practice only to the extent you know it exists, know how to invoke it, and actually do so in good time.

Disclaimer: This guide is for general information and educational purposes only. It is not legal advice, and it does not create an advocate-client relationship with Lex Monk or Advocate Chandrakant K. Deshmukh. Every section number, threshold, rate, and notification status discussed across all Parts must be verified against the current official text of the relevant Code, its Rules, and the latest notifications of the Central Government and the Government of Maharashtra before being relied upon for any specific decision, claim, or compliance action. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.