Over 1.7 crore unorganized workers register at e-Shram portal within a month of launch

New Delhi, Sept 27 (KNN) After completion of one month of launch of e-Shram portal marks registration of more than 1.71 crore workers from the unorganized sector and in unorganized employment. As of 25 September, 1,71,59,743 workers have registered at the portal.

The e-Shram portal (https://eshram.gov.in/) was inaugurated on 26 August 2021 by the Union Labour and Employment Minister, Bhupender Yadav in presence of Minister of State (Labour and Employment) Rameswar Teli. The portal is the first-ever national database of unorganised workers including migrant workers, construction workers, and gig and platform workers. It facilitates extending benefits of social sector schemes to the workers in the unorganized sector.  .

To bolster this movement, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav distributed e-Shram cards to unorganized workers in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Union Minister Yadav also presented approval letters for ESI COVID-19 relief Scheme to dependents of workers who lost their lives to COVID-19 and alongside approval letters for Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojna Relief scheme, to workers in the unorganized sector.

Speaking on the e-Shram portal, the Minister expressed the desire that every worker in unorganized sector should get registered on the portal. “Registration is necessary, so that we know how many workers are there in each trade. More than 400 trades have already been represented on the portal. We want everyone to register so that every worker including those who perform very small work is able to avail the benefits of government schemes. Moreover, those who register on the portal now are eligible to get insurance up to INR 2 lakh,” said Minister Yadav. 

50% of the workers registered so far are female. There has been week-on-week improvement in the percentage of female workforce, registering themselves at e-Shram portal. The share of women workers drastically improved from around 37% in week 1 to almost 50% in the latest week.

Since week one, Odisha and Bihar have competed with each other to maintain the first position. While Bihar slipped from 1st to 3rd rank, between week 3 and week 4, Odisha in three out of total four weeks, since the launch of portal, has successfully maintained the first rank in terms of registration of unorganized workers at e-Shram portal.

Outreach of CSCs becomes crucial in making the registration process a success. As indicated in the figure above, there has been a steady improvement in the outreach of CSCs and their popularity as a mode of registration has risen. In week 1, while 56.36% registrations were done via CSCs, in week 4, more than 78% of the registrations were completed via CSCs. The States/UTs shall play an important to mobilise and register the unorganised sector workers of their respective State/UTs on the e-SHRAM Portal through the CSCs.

The e-shram portal is seeded with Aadhaar and will have details of name, occupation, address, educational qualification, skill types and family details etc. of the registered workers. This will thus enable optimum realization of their employability and enable them to avail benefits of government schemes.

Any worker who is working in unorganized sector and comes in the age bracket of 16-59, is eligible to register on the e-Shram portal. Migrant workers, gig workers, platform workers, agricultural workers, MGNREGA workers, fishermen, milkmen, ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers, street vendors, domestic workers, rickshaw pullers and other workers engaged in similar other occupations in the unorganised sector are all eligible.