NEW DELHI: In almost 24 days, more than one crore workers from the unorganised sector have registered on the e-Shram portal, the Ministry of Labour and Employment said in a statement.
The e-Shram portal was launched by Union Minister of Labour and Employment, Bhupender Yadav and Minister of State, Rameshwar Teli on August 26.
“The drive to facilitate registration of unorganized workers on the e-Shram portal has received huge attention since its launch on August 26. 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 per cent of the beneficiaries are female and 57 per cent are male,” read an official release by the ministry.
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.
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 a lesser number of registered workforce, the ministry informed.
“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,” read the release.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment said that 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 hardware workers, capital goods workers, education, healthcare, retail, tourism and hospitality, food industry and many more have registered at this portal,” it said.
“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,” it added.
“Therefore, an 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,” read the release.