18 Sept 2024
Three years after the launch of the union government’s e-Shram portal that aimed to create a national database of India’s informal migrant workers, registrations have plateaued as benefits do not reach many workers.
Santosh Kumar, a 41-year-old cab driver, registered on India's first national database for informal workers through the e-Shram portal in 2021. Launched in August that year by the union government, the website was meant to provide social security measures for India’s estimated 380 million unorganised sector workers.
Among the benefits promised were an accident insurance of Rs 200,000; the ease of accessing welfare entitlements, such as subsidised foodgrain anywhere in India; and inclusion of their names and locations on a database that union and state governments would use to deliver relief during crisis situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic.