Over 70% unorganised workers registered in year since e-Shram portal launch

National labour conference being held today to discuss providing social welfare schemes to card holders

A little over 74 per cent of unorganised workers have registered on the e-Shram portal in the one year since its launch.

As many as 281.5 million workers were issued e-Shram cards as of August 24. While there are different estimates of unorganised workers in the country, the labour ministry pegs the number at 380 million.

The portal was launched on August 26 last year to create a national database for unorganised workers, including those working in construction, agriculture and other types of industries and services, with the main objective of providing them social security and other benefits. The workers include migrant, gig and platform workers, street vendors, and domestic helps, too. 

The database will also work as an input for evidence-based policies for the workforce.

A two-day national conference of labour ministers and secretaries of the Union government and states and Union Territories began in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, on Thursday and integrating the e-Shram portal for onboarding social security schemes run by the central government and state governments to universalise social protection to workers and to improve employment opportunities for all is on the agenda.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually inaugurate the conference.

The government has linked the e-Shram portal with the national career service (NCS) portal and is planning to link it to two other portals – ASEEM, which acts as a directory of skilled workforce, and Udyam, which is a portal for MSMEs – labour ministry sources said.

Almost 30 per cent or 82.9 million of the registrations were from the most populous state in the country, Uttar Pradesh. This was followed by Bihar at 28.4 million, West Bengal at 25.6 million, and Madhya Pradesh at 16.5 million.

Over half of the registered workers at 147.3 million are engaged in agriculture, with domestic and household workers at a distant second at 27.7 million, accounting for 9.8 per cent of total registrations.

With a share of 52.8 per cent, female workers beat their male counterparts in registrations. 

Workers registered on the portal are being given accidental insurance cover. They are eligible for Rs 2 lakh on death or permanent disability and Rs 1 lakh in the case of partial disability. About Rs 704 crore has been budgeted for the portal for five years. As part of the process, the workers are issued an e-Shram card containing a 12-digit unique number.

Workers can register themselves using Aadhaar numbers and bank account details, apart from filling other necessary details like date of birth, home town, mobile number, and social category.