Unorganised sector workers may soon have a one-stop portal for all schemes
Labour ministry working to integrate central government schemes on eShram portal
- Apr 22, 2024,
- Updated Apr 22, 2024 11:08 AM IST
In a move that could help India’s unorganised sector workforce get access to government benefits and services at one go, the Ministry of Labour and Employment is working to turn the eShram portal into a one-stop solution by collating all government schemes for these workers on the platform.
eShram is the largest national database of unorganised sector workers with details of 295 million workers including migrant labour, domestic workers, self employed and small shopkeepers, who get a Universal Account Number, seeded with their Aadhaar, after registering on the portal. The portal is envisaged for delivery of social security benefits to these workers.
According to top government sources, the labour ministry is in talks with as many as 14 Central government ministries and departments to discuss the plan. An inter-ministerial meeting was also held on this issue earlier this month.
It was attended by representatives from 14 ministries including those from rural development, agriculture and farmers welfare, housing and urban affairs and skill development and entrepreneurship.
“There are as many as 600 Central government schemes with a total outlay of Rs 15 lakh crore. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for workers to register on various portals to get the benefit of schemes that apply to them. If all such schemes are integrated on the eShram portal, workers will be able to see what schemes apply to them and easily register for them,” said a senior official, adding that this would also enable targeted delivery of schemes by the respective administrative ministries, enabling them to fully utilise the resources allocated for this.
At present, workers who register on the eShram portal can go through a list of 1,700 schemes to see which of these apply to them. The eShram portal has already been integrated with the One Nation One Ration Card scheme.
The data from eShram portal is being used to identify and match beneficiaries and issue ration cards to them.
“A similar model can be used to integrate other schemes,” noted the official, adding that the data on the eShram portal can be used for matching beneficiaries for other schemes too. The National Career Service portal was previously also integrated with the eShram portal enabling workers to look for jobs easily.
The ministry had also conducted a small pilot on this and is confident that the portal can work on a much larger scale.
In a move that could help India’s unorganised sector workforce get access to government benefits and services at one go, the Ministry of Labour and Employment is working to turn the eShram portal into a one-stop solution by collating all government schemes for these workers on the platform.
eShram is the largest national database of unorganised sector workers with details of 295 million workers including migrant labour, domestic workers, self employed and small shopkeepers, who get a Universal Account Number, seeded with their Aadhaar, after registering on the portal. The portal is envisaged for delivery of social security benefits to these workers.
According to top government sources, the labour ministry is in talks with as many as 14 Central government ministries and departments to discuss the plan. An inter-ministerial meeting was also held on this issue earlier this month.
It was attended by representatives from 14 ministries including those from rural development, agriculture and farmers welfare, housing and urban affairs and skill development and entrepreneurship.
“There are as many as 600 Central government schemes with a total outlay of Rs 15 lakh crore. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for workers to register on various portals to get the benefit of schemes that apply to them. If all such schemes are integrated on the eShram portal, workers will be able to see what schemes apply to them and easily register for them,” said a senior official, adding that this would also enable targeted delivery of schemes by the respective administrative ministries, enabling them to fully utilise the resources allocated for this.
At present, workers who register on the eShram portal can go through a list of 1,700 schemes to see which of these apply to them. The eShram portal has already been integrated with the One Nation One Ration Card scheme.
The data from eShram portal is being used to identify and match beneficiaries and issue ration cards to them.
“A similar model can be used to integrate other schemes,” noted the official, adding that the data on the eShram portal can be used for matching beneficiaries for other schemes too. The National Career Service portal was previously also integrated with the eShram portal enabling workers to look for jobs easily.
The ministry had also conducted a small pilot on this and is confident that the portal can work on a much larger scale.