1.71 Cr workers from unorganised sector registered on e-SHRAM portal in a month: Labour Ministry

Over 1.71 crore workers from the unorganised sector have been registered on the e-SHRAM portal in the last one month since its launch on August 26, 2021.

"Completion of one month of the launch of e-SHRAM portal marks with the registration of more than 1.71 crores workers from the unorganised sector and in unorganised employment," a labour ministry statement said.

As of September 25, the statement said, as many as 1,71,59,743 workers have registered on the portal. The e-SHRAM portal was inaugurated on August 26, 2021, by the Union Labour and Employment Minister Bhupender Yadav.

The portal is the first-ever national database of unorganised workers including migrant workers, construction workers, gig and platform workers. It facilitates extending benefits of social sector schemes to the workers in the unorganised sector.

The data shows that the drive has strengthened with the mobilisation of workers achieving a greater mile each week. In this first week, 13.55 lakh informal workers registered on the portal.

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Compared to the second week with over 19.52 lakh registration, in the third and the fourth week, the enrolments gained exponentially. In week four, over 69.53 lakh workers registered on the e-SHRAM portal while it was 68.97 lakh in the third week.

Interestingly, almost 50 percent of the workers registered so far are female. There has been a week-on-week improvement in the percentage of the female workforce, registering themselves on the e-SHRAM portal, the statement said.

The share of women workers drastically improved from around 37 percent in first week to almost 50 percent in the latest week, i.e. week four.

Data analysis based on the last week showed that a substantial proportion of women workers in domestic work are getting themselves registered on the portal.

This is one category of occupation where women outnumber men. Besides, women form a substantial proportion of the workforce in sectors like agriculture as labourers, food industries as helpers and machine operators, apparel industry as helpers and tailors and also in small scale units of tobacco/ beedi rolling and as ASHAs/ANMs in the healthcare industry.

Therefore, it would not be wrong to assume that most vulnerable groups of women are insured under various protection schemes accruing from registration at the portal, the ministry said.

Since week one, Odisha and Bihar have competed with each other to maintain the first position, it stated. 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 the portal, has successfully maintained the first rank in terms of registration of unorganised workers at the e-SHRAM portal, it added.

The Ministry said there has been a steady improvement in the outreach of CSCs (Common Service Centres) and their popularity as a mode of registration has risen.

In the first week, while 56.36 percent of registrations were done via CSCs, in week four, more than 78 percent 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 the optimum realisation of their employability and enable them to avail benefits of government schemes.

Any worker who is working in an unorganised sector and aged between 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.