Centre to integrate EPFO, e-Shram database to track workforce formalisation

Move aims at tracking workforce formalisation in India

The Union labour ministry is set to integrate the databases of the e-Shram portal and the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to map and measure the formalisation trends of the workforce in the country, said a senior government official.

"The integration of these two databases will help us in observing the real-time to and fro movement of unorganised sector workers to the formal sector and vice versa, which will then aid us in designing targeted welfare policies," the official told Business Standard.

Currently, the labour ministry is working to merge the 300 million unorganised workers’ strong e-Shram database with various welfare schemes of the central and state governments.

“The idea is to develop e- Shram as a single window easily accessible point for millions of workers in the country and we will try to integrate all welfare schemes with it,” the official said.

“In the next phase, the effort would be on generating real-time data of the scale of formalisation taking place. If any worker registered on e-Shram generates a UAN under EPFO, it will get reflected and will be reflective of him getting formalised,” the official said.

Last week, Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya told reporters that the ministry had successfully integrated ten central schemes with the e-Shram database as part of the first phase of integration in the first 100 days of the new government.  

The schemes available on the portal are Ration card, PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin (PMAY-G), PMAY- Urban, National Career Service portal, Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan, National Disability Pension, National Widow Pension, PM Matisya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) and Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH).

The ministry is also in the process of expanding the reach of the central database as it looks to onboard 200 million more workers from unorganised sectors onto the e-Shram portal.

According to estimates, the total workforce in the country stands at around 650 million, with close to 100 million already in the organised sector. The e-Shram database is expected to saturate somewhere around 500 million people.

Earlier in July, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the Union Budget that the government would facilitate the provision of a wide array of services to labour, including those for employment and skilling, with a comprehensive integration of e-Shram with other portals for a one-stop solution.

Joining Hands

- Merged database will help observe real-time movement of unorganised workers

- Labour ministry working to merge e-Shram database with various welfare schemes of central and state governments

- Ministry to expand central database’s reach as it looks to take on board 200 mn more workers from unorganised sector