By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, SEPT 20, 2021: THE drive to facilitate registration of unorganized workers on E-Shram portal has received huge attention since its launch on August 26th. In almost 24 days, more than 1 crore (or 10 million) workers have registered at the portal. As of today, 1,03,12,095 workers have registered in the portal. Of these around 43% of the beneficiaries are female and 57% are male.

In a first ever concentrate step towards generating a comprehensive database of the unorganized workers from different sectors like construction, apparel manufacturing, fishing, gig and platform work, street vending, domestic work, agriculture and allied, transport sector and so on, the e-shram portal was launched by Union Minister of Labour & Employment, Mr Bhupender Yadav and Minister of State, Mr Rameshwar Teli on 26th of August.

An overwhelming proportion of migrant workers are engaged in these sectors of work. As per Economic Survey 2019-20, there are an estimated 38 crore unorganised workers (UW) in the country, which would be targeted to register on this portal.These migrant workers also can now take the benefits of various social security and employment-based schemes through registration at the e-Shram portal.

Mr Bhupender Yadav, Mr RameswarTeli, Secretary Labour and Employment ,Mr Apurva Chandra (Secretary L&E) and the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) and other regional officers of CLC are interacting with the unorganised workers and leaders of trade union and media, to sensitize them about the features and benefits of the recently launched e-SHRAM portal for creating a national database of unorganized sector workers. Also, the CLC(C) held five such meetings to bolster the registration exercise and this met with huge success.

Union Minister of Labour & Employment and Environment, Mr Bhupender Yadav, interacting with and distributing E-Shram cards to unorganized sector workers at registration centre at Imphal, Manipur on 19 th September, 2021

Minister of State, Mr RameswarTeli, interacting with and distributing E-Shram cards to unorganized sector workers at registration centre at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh on 18th September, 2021

As per the latest data, the states of Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are at the forefront of this initiative with the highest number of registrations, as depicted by the graph below. However, putting this number into perspective must be with caution. Smaller states and union territories (UTs) understandably have lesser number of registered workforce.

The drive needs to gain momentum in states and UTs such as Kerala, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh. This registration would facilitate delivery and accessibility to crucial welfare programmes and various entitlements meant for the workers in the unorganized sector and employment.

The largest number of workers registered are from agriculture and construction, given the sheer volume of these two sectors in employment generation in India. Besides, workers from diverse and different occupations like domestic and household workers, apparel sector workers, automobile and transport sector workers, electronics and hard ware workers, capital goods workers, education, healthcare, retail, tourism and hospitality, food industry and many more have registered at this portal.

Around 48% of these registered workers are in the age group of 25-40 years, followed by around 21% registration in the age group of 40-50 years, 19% registration in the age group of 16-25 years and 12% registration in the age group of 50 years and above.

A substantial proportion of registration has been facilitated by the CSC as depicted in the graph above. Interestingly, in certain states like Kerala and Goa and in North-East India, Meghalaya and Manipur a greater proportion of individuals have self-registered in the portal. Similar is the case with most Union Territories like Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Andaman & Nicobar and Ladakh. However, according to the latest updates an overwhelming proportion of workers (68%) have registered themselves through CSCs. Therefore, outreach of the CSCs emerges to be a crucial factor in lesser facilitated areas. Workers are encouraged to visit their nearest CSCs to register themselves at the portal and take advantage of this exercise which would lead to greater portability and last mile delivery of various welfare programmes. Migrant workers, in particular would be immensely benefitted from this.

For online registrations, individual workers can use E-Shram's mobile application or the website. They can also visit the Common Service Centres (CSC), State Seva Kendra, Labour Facilitation Centres, selected post offices of the Department of Posts' Digital Seva Kendras, to register themselves in this portal. After registration at e-SHRAM Portal, the unorganised workers shall receive a digital e-SHRAM card and they can update their profiles/ particulars through portal or mobile app. They will have a Universal Account Number (on eSHRAM Card) that will be acceptable across the country and now they will not be required to register at different places for obtaining social security benefits. If a worker is registered at the e-Shram portal and meets with an accident, he/she will be eligible for Rs 2.0 Lakh on death or permanent disability and Rs 1.0 lakh on partial disability.