e-Shram portal: 1 in 4 informal workers now on central database

Almost 27 per cent of workers in the unorganised sector have registered on the e-Shram portal, which completed three months of launch on Thursday.

The portal was launched on August 27 to enable the government to frame policies for informal workers by having a centralised database for them. As many as 92.16 million workers have joined the portal as of 5 pm on Thursday. According to SBI Research, there are 344 million unorganised workers in the country.

West Bengal topped the list of workers on the portal at 22.9 per cent, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 18.9 per cent, Odisha (13.2 per cent), Bihar (10.9 per cent) and Jharkhand (5.1 per cent). The top ten states accounted for 87 per cent of the registration, while the top four states had a share of 66 per cent.

With a share of 51.96 per cent in total registrations, female workers beat their male counterparts. Most registrations have come from the age group of 18-40 years — at 61.18 per cent. Over 92 per cent of those registered have monthly income of up to Rs 10,000.

As expected, most of the workers are from agriculture, constituting 52 per cent of the total, followed by construction at 10 per cent and domestic, household workers at 9 per cent. About 87.95 per cent of workers have shared their bank details on the portal.

“This would help the government frame policies for the workers because most of them have shared their bank accounts with the government,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic advisor at SBI Group.

D P S Negi, Principal Advisor at the Ministry of Labour and Employment said two-three social schemes of the government would be linked to the portal in December. He said the schemes are yet to be identified. In the future, more schemes would be rolled out through the portal, he said.

The portal is the first-ever national database of unorganised workers, including migrant workers, construction workers, gig and platform workers.

Workers registered on the portal are being given accidental insurance cover. They will be 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 number and bank account details, apart from filling other necessary details like date of birth, home town, mobile number, and social category.