Migrants have been an important part of the platforms focused on delivery of services and commodities because migrants help them in lowering the costs of production as most migrants remain willing to work under precarious conditions. However, the inclusion of migrants within the gig economy has complicated the analysis of gig workers in general in the country, most of whom already suffer from the lack of any socio-cultural and economic structures to fall back on.<sup>10</sup> Migrants get attracted to the gig economy because the gig economy provides them with increased incomes, a break from traditional or routine jobs and often allows them to work flexibly (Alyanak et al., 2023). Most of these factors become extremely relevant to migrant gig workers because most of their native places suffer from massive underdevelopment. Underdevelopment can be said to be a situation where a reigning social system is unable to bear the cost of a decent standard of living (Sagasti, 1973). As a country,
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<sup>6</sup> See Raman and Rizvi ibid.
<sup>7</sup> The chapter uses the term ‘delivery workers’ instead of the commonly used ‘delivery partners’ so as to highlight the working-class belongingness of these workers.
<sup>8</sup> Courier and delivery companies such as DTDC, Shiprocket, and XpressBees also use gig workers, but in the current chapter, only those delivery workers working for platformbased retail or service companies offering direct delivery services have been considered.
<sup>9</sup> See ILO. (2021). World Employment and Social Outlook 2021: The role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work. Geneva: International Labour Organisation. Available at: http://onlinelabourobservatory.org/paper/ilo-weso-report-2021/ [Accessed 04.07.2024].
<sup>10</sup> See Yasmin, S., & Bannerjee, P. (2023). Gig Economy – The Indian Picture So Far. KREA University, https://ifmrlead.org/gig-economy-the-indian-picture-so-far/ [Accessed 04.07.2024].