E-Shram Registrations at Snail’s Pace. SC Should Take Note

Three major labour laws govern the welfare of different segments of unorganised workers - the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 (ISMWA), the Building and other Constructions Workers Act, 1966 (BCOWA) and the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 (UWSSA). These laws often interact with each other. Owing to complete or partial non-implementation of the laws,  construction, migrant and unorganised workers suffered a great deal during the pandemic and even in the post-pandemic period. 

Ironically, COVID-19 brought millions of such hitherto ‘invisible’ workers to the mainstream media and public discussion. The Supreme Court has proactively begun to take the case of the sufferings of the migrant workers, in particular, and the unorganised workers in general, since May 26, 2020.  

On June 29, 2021, the Court passed strictures on the Central government’s handling of the development of the database of the unorganised workers.

The Supreme Court’s suo motu case

In June 2020, in In re: Problems and Miseries of Migrant Labourer, the Supreme Court directed the Central government to develop a portal for registration of the unorganized labourers/migrant workers.  It directed the work to begin before July 31, 2021 and the entire process of registration to be “completed at the earliest, but not later than 31.12.2021.” The Court also directed the State governments to register migrant workers under the ISMWA and provide the particulars to the Central government .

Meanwhile, the second wave of the pandemic struck India in March and April, 2021. On June 11, 2021, the Court asked each state government to submit a short note detailing the stages of registration and data collection, and regarding other efforts made to aid migrant workers. Accordingly it directed the governments to register the establishments and grant licenses to implement the law effectively.

On June 29, 2021, the Court passed strictures on the Central government’s handling of the development of the database of the unorganised workers. It noted: “When the unorganized workers are waiting for registration and are waiting to reap the benefit of various welfare schemes of the States and Centre, the apathy and lackadaisical attitude by the Ministry of Labour and Employment is unpardonable.”

It also added: “To provide access to the migrant workers to different Schemes of State Government and Central Government, registration is a must.” It noted purposefully that unless there is the registry of the unorganised workers the government cannot sing praises of its achievements.Setting a deadline of December 31, 2021, the bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and M.R. Shah directed,  “All the concerned States/Union Territories and the Licence Holders/Contractors and others to cooperate with the Central Government to complete the process of registration of migrant workers and unorganized labourers so that the benefits of the welfare schemes declared by the Central Government/State Governments/ Union Territories be available to migrant workers and unorganized labourers for whose benefits the welfare schemes are declared.”

Over the period the number of unorganised workers and those registered on the E-Shram portal have increased.

It further directed “all the States/Union Territories to register all establishments and license all contractors under the Act, 1979 and ensure that statutory duty imposed on the contractors to give particulars of migrant workers is fully complied with.”

On May 18, 2022 the Central government asked for more time to submit a compliance report providing the details of the progress made in complying with the Court’s June 2021 order. By that time, 27.45 crore unorganised workers were registered on the Portal. According to the Central government, many of the states had not fully complied with the completion of registration of the migrant workers - Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Gujarat had met 36.97, 34.48, 34.9, and 48.4 percent of their targets. The Court gave another six weeks’ time to the state governments to submit the compliance reports. 

In sum, we need an updated database on migrant workers and the gig workers and the rest of the unorganised workers. 

The E-Shram portal

On August 26, 2021, the Central government launched the E-Shram, Portal-National Database of Unorganized Workers (NDUW) at an estimated cost of ₹704 crores for the period FY 2019-20 to FY 2024-25, to register the unorganised workers The database will be seeded with Aadhaar. The NDUW will have details of name, occupation, address, occupation type, educational qualification, skill types, family details etc. Some of the objectives of the E-Shram portal in its own words are: 

(1) Establish a centralized database of unorganized workers for effective policy implementation. 

(2) Enhance access to social security schemes and benefits for workers in sectors such as agriculture, construction, domestic work, and street vending. 

(3) Facilitate job matching and skill development opportunities. 

(4) Strengthen labor (sic) market resilience by integrating unorganized workers into the formal economy. 

(5) Promote financial inclusion through direct benefit transfers and digital payments.

The Union government has claimed it to be  “the first-ever national database of unorganised workers including migrant workers, construction workers, gig and platform workers, etc.” The E-Shram portal allows the unorganised workers -  those aged between 16-59 and not a member of Employees' State Insurance Corporation, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation or the National Pension System - on a self-declaration basis.

It also provides for registration of aggregators on the portal. Aggregators can also manually upload details of gig workers, as it instructs:  “use eShram’s API integration for seamless data transfer.” Once validated by the government the aggregators can check the data on the E-Shram dashboard. 

The registration of the unorganized workers under the E-Shram site assumes added importance. On April 20, 2023, the Supreme Court directed the Union government to issue ration cards to 8 crore registrants on the portal. 

On March 19, 2024, the Court directed the Union to issue ration cards to the remaining 8 crore unorganised/migrant workers registered on the Portal. This would help unorganised workers to reap the benefits under the Food Security Act, 2013. 

According to the Economic Survey 2020-21, out of India’s 53.53 crore strong workforce, 43.99 crore workers are engaged in the unorganised sector.  As on March 31, 2024, over 29.51 crore unorganised workers have registered on E-Shram Portal.  This means that a little more than two-thirds (67.08%) of the estimated unorganised workers have registered in the E-Shram portal. This is a slightly generous estimate as we derive the rate by taking workforce data in 2020-21. 

In sum, we need an updated database on migrant workers and the gig workers and the rest of the unorganised workers. 

Over the period the number of unorganised workers and those registered on the E-Shram portal have increased. It increased from 29.51 crores as on March 31, 2024 to 30,48,02,313 crores by December 19, 2024 and then to 30,65,04,015 by February 19, 2025.  

Our analysis of registration numbers reveals tardy progress

For a holistic picture on the rate of registration of the unorganised workers, we present state-wise data in the following table. We have estimated the number of unorganised workers as on December 31, 2024 using the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (‘PLFS’) database and taken the number of registered workers from the E-Shram website for each state. 

We see from the above table that for the country, as a whole, a little less than two-thirds (63.25%) of the unorganised workers have registered as on February 22, 2025.  Quite worryingly the registration rates in 26 States and Union Territories are below the national average registration rate of 63.25%. A few States like Uttarakhand (95.05%), Delhi (91.74%), and Bihar (82.49%) have very impressive registration rates, i.e. over 80% rates.  

The number of informal workers derived from the PLFS data and calculated through the formula is only an estimate. It is not a census data. We always suspected that the total number of actual informal workers in several states could exceed the estimated number of informal workers. This is borne out by the Uttar Pradesh numbers. The registration rate in Uttar Pradesh is over 100 percent, indicating that the actual informal workers are higher than the estimated informal workers. Possibly, of those registered in Uttar Pradesh, several are working in the informal economy in other states. This could also artificially inflate the registration rates. 

Quite worryingly the registration rates in 26 States and Union Territories are below the national average registration rate of 63.25%.

Odisha (78.58%), Jharkhand (73.68%), West Bengal (66.39%), Haryana (65.38%), and Chhattisgarh (63.68%) are faring well in terms of registration of workers.  It is the more developed States like Telangana (30.91%), Tamil Nadu (34.63%), Maharashtra (37.20%), Andhra Pradesh (40.04%), Gujarat (42.20%), and Karnataka (45.92%) which have abysmally low registration rates. 

Kerala just about touched the halfway mark. The government has yet to register 17.93 crore unorganised workers. On a daily basis, we observe that on an average 33,480 workers are register on a daily basis  (10 February 2025 = 29,958; 11 February = 34,004 and 18 February 36,477). This is a very tardy rate of daily registration. An estimated 17.82 crore workers are yet to register. At this slow rate, it would take years to realize a 100 per cent rate of registration of all the estimated unorganised workers. 

We reiterate that we are doing the numbers game with the estimates of the unorganised workers and the figures are not on a census mode, which might arguably throw up a larger count. 

Little incentive for workers and employers to register on the portal

The E-Shram is an important initiative but this is a voluntary registration procedure and hence unorganised/informal workers would not be registering in it. Secondly, there is little incentive for the workers to register themselves because it takes time and workers are not tech-savvy. 

My domestic worker is illiterate and I had to intervene to register here. After having personally failed to register on my computer, (the server was coincidentally down on the three occasions I tried) I paid Rs. 200 to get the registration done for her.  The registrations would have been more impressive if the governments immediately provided credible monetary benefits like cash transfers. 

I have not seen consistent and big-ticket advertisements regarding E-Shram in the popular outlets.  Many domestic workers and street vendors I spoke to in Mumbai were not aware about the project. 

There is also little incentive for employers/contractors to push their workers to register. The governments instead of, or apart from, spending huge amounts on the achievements of their rule must spend a proportionately considerable amount of money on popularizing the scheme. 

The governments instead of, or apart from, spending huge amounts on the achievements of their rule must spend a proportionately considerable amount of money on popularizing the scheme. 

The eligibility condition in E-Shram is that the workers must not have both provident fund and medical insurance (ESI). Lakhs of contract workers who work in the organised sector and those working in small and medium establishments may enjoy either and hence cannot register even though by all reckoning they are ‘unorganised”.  

It appears that E-Shram may not have data on the migrant workers. It is definitely not on the dashboard of it. Then, have we missed a golden opportunity to not merely enumerate them but also provide them with suitable identities for securing reliefs and protections for them? 

The Social Security Code, 2020 has included “gig” workers in its scheme of providing social security to them.  However, they are not included as a component of “workers” as defined in this Code and other Labour Codes. When I spoke to Shaikh Salludin, Secretary, IFAT, he informed me that only 20,000 platform-based workers had registered as “gig” workers .  

This data could be handy for litigations that are pending before courts concerning gig workers. If the gig is not restricted only to transport and is widespread even in other occupations such as teachers, then we have a huge problem of even statistically isolating them. 

Agriculture has dominated the registrations (52.13 percent of the total registrations are by agricultural workers).  But do we have a law in place for the agricultural workers as the National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Workers (NCEUS) recommended?  

Given that occupational safety and health will soon become a universal call, agriculture cannot be devoid of regulations. Laws regulating labour relations in this sector are the urgent need of the hour. The Codes must factor in these demands and complexities and they cannot be implemented as they are passed. Finally, the government must provide data on more dimensions so that its scope and the kind of registrations that take place will be transparent. 

The registration number of 30 crores is an impressive show and the government boasted of it in the global forum. It noted: “The Indian delegation to the 112th International Labour Conference (ILC) showcased the e-Shram portal and its present integrations and achievements. The E-Shram portal and effort by the Ministry in its development were well appreciated by the delegates of different member States at ILC.” While this is fine, the objectives of E-Shram are far nobler than statistical feats. 

Given our objectives, we should have achieved 100 percent registration by this time. We have not.

The government must answer how many resourceless and often illiterate migrant and unorganised workers have registered to secure measly benefits it may provide to them in the distant future. To recapitulate, these workers have to register under: 

1) the E-Shram, 

2) the Social Security Code, 2020, 

3) the several welfare schemes like PM-JAY, 

4) ration card, 

5) state labour welfare fund, 

6) welfare schemes floated by the state governments, 

7) state level social security laws (like the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023), 

8) again on E-Shram (gig workers) to avail PM-JAY Scheme benefits, etc.

This convoluted procedure is contrary to the objective of the labour law reforms which was to rationalise the compliance procedures and reduce the compliance burden. The employers cannot, with all their resources, comply with even minimal requirements. How, then, does the State expect the millions of illiterate workers to be digitally competent enough to comply with the welfare requirements to avail of the benefits given by the State? By prioritising the ease of doing business for employers, has the State not created a complex web of bureaucracy for workers? Further, what happens to the workers’ erstwhile registrations under various labour laws and labour welfare funds? 

We envisage three problems: 

1) “information deficit,” due to a failure to effectively disseminate information on the new schemes by the government, will be a grater problem than the schemes themselves;

2) the multiple registrations would disincentivise workers from registering due to increased expenditures on seeking outside help for registration; 

3) “digital discrimination”, a form of segmentation of the informal workforce would lead to welfare loss.  

Apparently, we do not have data on migrant workers and gig workers on the E-SHram dashboard. The Union Budget has offered to provide health insurance coverage under Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and we need data on individual gig workers. If this is true, we are looking at major trouble.

Given our objectives, we should have achieved 100 percent registration by this time. We have not. The Supreme Court has exhibited, time and again, a sense of urgency to formalize the existence of millions of informal workers and directed the Central and the state governments to quickly register them and make them statistically visible. This would enable the delivery of the much-needed social security and other welfare measures. But the governments are taking their own time. 

What will the Supreme Court do? Or rather what should it do?

We hope the Supreme Court takes cognizance of these issues and makes its powerful intervention in this matter.