The country’s first centralised database of unorganised workers, e-Shram portal, has recorded over 70 million registrations so far. States like Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Bihar lead in terms of completing their respective targets for registration, as per news reports.
The e-Shram portal was launched for unorganised and migrant workers on August 26, 2021. It was developed for creating a national database of unorganised workers which will be seeded with Aadhaar including details like their name, occupation, address, educational qualifications, etc.
It is the first-ever such national database that will include migrant workers, construction workers, gig and platform workers, etc., and aims to extend benefits of social security schemes to them.
Close to 18 per cent of workers have registered on the database out of a total of 387 million unorganised workers. Odisha leads with the coverage of 87 per cent of its target, followed by West Bengal at 65 per cent, Chhattisgarh at 33 per cent, Jharkhand at 31 per cent, and Bihar at 25 per cent, as per news reports.
Also Read : Centre launches e-portal for unorganised migrant workers; activists welcome the move but have a few concerns
“One obvious reason behind a high rate of enrollment is the high level of desperation to access benefits and welfare schemes by workers in these states,” Dharmendra Kumar, a secretary at Jan Pahal, a community and labour based organisation in New Delhi that works with low-income families and informal workers, told Gaon Connection.
“States like Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and even Uttar Pradesh witness a flow of migrant workers – they send their workers to other states – and they were the most affected during the COVID-19 lockdown, hence they’re more inclined to get some kind of access to benefits by the government,” he explained.
As per news reports, states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have a higher target for registrations than Odisha but registrations in these states are yet to pick up pace. It was reported that the target achievement rate in these states is at 10 per cent or below.
Also Read : ‘Almost 50% informal workers didn’t receive full wages in the second wave lockdowns’
The government aims to register a total population of 383 million informal sector workers by March-end next year. Kumar said that it’s difficult to meet the target set by the central government at the current pace of registration. “The daily average registration is just 1.2 million. More workers need to be registered on a daily basis to register all the informal workers by March-end,” he noted.
After registering on the e-Shram portal, the workers will be issued a universal account number on the e-Shram card which will be valid across the country, and can be used to link with various social security schemes. For example, the accidental insurance scheme has already been linked with registration on the e-Shram portal. The accidental insurance covers Rs 2,00,000 in the event of death or permanent disability and Rs 1,00,000 in the event of partial disability for the workers.
Calling the registration portal a “gateway to social security whose doors will be opened once the entire path has been laid,” Kumar added that while the registration in the e-Shram portal helps the workers to establish their identity and get access to social security and welfare schemes of the government, they will be able to access them only once the entire registration process is completed.
