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More than five crore or fifty million workers have registered on the e-SHRAM portal – the National Database on Unorganized Workers. This was launched by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment on 26th August 2021, with the aim create a database of all unorganised sector workers of India. The impetus came after the Supreme Court of India recommended to the Union Government to take up the matter after witnessing the migrant workers crisis that had engulfed the country during the national lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic. The registration process has been a longstanding demand of many organisations and platforms associated with ensuring the rights of workers across the country and it has been welcomed by all.
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Any unorganised or informal sector worker between the age of 16 and 59 years who is not already registered with either the Employees Provident Fund Organisation or the Employees State Insurance Corporation, and is not an income tax payee can register with the e-SHRAM portal with their mobile phone number, Aadhaar number and bank account number. All registrations are done on self-declaration basis and no further documents of proof of income or work is required. There are more than 400 categories of work listed on the portal from which workers can choose and register themselves. Once registered, all social security benefits linked to the portal would be transferred directly to the workers’ bank accounts. The registration can be currently done in two ways – self-registration through Aadhaar-linked mobile phone number or registration at any of the Common Services Centres (CSC) present across the country. Of the five crore workers who have registered, more than 77% came through the CSCs.
Although the E-Shram website does not include amongst the stakeholders any trade unions, workers’ organisations or any civil society organisations, ActionAid Association has organised a campaign across more than 11 States and one Union Territory to raise awareness about the portal, mobilise people and facilitate their registration. Overcoming challenges including but not limited to lack of awareness, lack of Aadhaar card, no bank account, digital illiteracy and inaccessibility of CSCs for communities in remote locations, the campaign is creating great impact on the ground.
Volunteers and teams across India are carrying out door-to-door micro campaigns and organising village meetings to raise awareness about the portal and share the benefits of registration. The worker facilitation centre run by ActionAid Association in Gaya district, Bihar is organising extensive campaigns at the railway station, as well as in rural areas in the district to raise awareness about the portal and facilitating migrant workers to register on the portal.
Across the country, the attempt is to reach out to communities who have been historically marginalised. Thus, registration processes have reached out to pastoral communities in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, De-Notified tribal communities in Panipat and Hisar districts of Haryana, Kolcha and Kotvadiya tribes of Navsari district of Gujarat, who come under the category of particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTG), brick kiln workers from Mansa district of Punjab, domestic workers from Kolkata, West Bengal, slum dwellers of Madhurawada and Kobbari Thota localities in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh and migrant workers, agricultural workers, MGNREGA workers and other daily wage labourers in Bolangir district of Odisha.
Measures to tackle digital illiteracy among unorganised workers have also been taken by various people on the ground. For example, in Vishakhapatnam, a workshop was organised in September 2021 to demonstrate the process of self-registration on the e-SHRAM portal. It was attended by street vendors and domestic workers. Similar training programmes have been held as part of the campaign.
The CSCs have a basic advantage over self-registration in the aspect that they have the ability to capture biometric data which enables a person without Aadhaar linked mobile phone to register on the portal. But CSCs are majorly situated in urban and peri-urban areas and that to in areas with most worksites or market areas. In order to make CSCs more accessible, ActionAid Association teams across the country have been working with district and state administrations to open CSCs in remote areas as well. For example, the ActionAid Association team opened a CSC in Kakadveri village of Navsari district, Gujarat which helped register 130 agricultural workers on the portal. Another such initiative saw CSCs being started in villages of Ghazipur and Muzaffarnagar districts in Uttar Pradesh since 20 October, 2021.
Apart from these on-the ground efforts, ActionAid Association, organised an online discussion with senior government officers, practitioners and activists working on the ground to implement the project. A charter of recommendations based on the discussions on issues related to implementation challenges of registering workers on the portal will be sent to the Labour Ministry. Mr DPS Negi, the Chief Labour Commissioner at the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, who was also one of the key speakers at an online meeting of workers, also welcomed the recommendations of workers leaders that will help address the challenges.
Registration on the E-Shram portal is the first step to ensuring rights of informal workers. The challenge will be how we as a nation can leverage this national database to ensure that both decent livelihood and social security can reach workers in the unorganized sector, who make up more than 90 per cent of our work force. The database of unorganised workers will not only show the size of the category, but also the heterogeneity within it. While we can anticipate implementation problems in the initial stages, which is true for any major new scheme, we need to find the resolve to course correct and move ahead in the right direction. Registration on the E-Shram portal carries with it an expectation that the ‘builders of the nation’ are recognised, respected, renumerated with dignified wages, protected and celebrated. That is the debt that India owes its most vulnerable workers.
Koustav Majumdar and Dipali Sharma
(Both work with ActionAid Association. Views expressed are personal, and do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation)
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