E-Shram Portal Analytics (Part I)
Understanding the Indian Labour Market
The Indian Economy is characterised by the existence of a vast majority of informal or unorganised labour employment. Out of 440 million workers in India, 93% of workers are in the unorganised sector i.e. more than 90% of the workforce is accounted for by the informal economy. Contributions made by the unorganised sector to national income are very substantial as compared to those of the organised sector. It adds more than 60 percent to the national income while the contribution of the organised sector is almost half of that depending on the industry. A high proportion of socially and economically underprivileged sections of society are concentrated in informal economic activities. It is vital to understand the nature of the Indian labour market before preparing policies. In order to do so, analysis of data would be helpful.
Why E-Shram Portal?
- In India, only about 8 percent of workers actually get the benefits available under various labour Acts. The remaining 92 percent work in the unorganised sector, and either are not eligible for coverage, or these Acts are just not implemented for them, with the result that these workers have insecure employment and low incomes. They have no coverage of social security, and have to spend out of their meagre incomes for all contingencies such as illness and children’s education; in their old age they are helpless.
- The government’s intentions are to focus on promotion of welfare and providing social security to the labour force both in organized and unorganized sectors. These objectives are sought to be achieved through enactment and implementation of various labour laws, which regulate the terms and conditions of service and employment of workers.
- The ministry of Labour and employment is continuously working on improving life and dignity of Labour force of country by protecting & safeguarding the interest of workers, promotion of welfare and providing social security to the Labour force both in Organized and Unorganized Sectors by enactment and implementation of various Labour Laws, which regulate the terms and conditions of service and employment of workers.
About E-Shram Portal
- There are no income criteria for registering on E-Shram as an unorganized worker. However, he/she should not be an income tax payee.
- Any worker who is unorganized and aged between 16-59, is eligible to register on the E-Shram portal.
- The Central Government has developed an E-Shram portal which will be a centralized database of unorganized workers seeded with Aadhaar. After registering, he/she will get an Accidental Insurance cover of 2 Lacs under PMSBY. In future, all the social security benefits of unorganized workers will be delivered through this portal. In emergency and national pandemic like situations, this database may be utilized to provide necessary assistance to the eligible unorganized workers.
Objectives of E-Shram Portal
- Creation of a centralized database of all unorganized workers (UWs) including Construction Workers, Migrant Workers, Gig and Platform workers, Street Vendors, Domestic Workers, Agriculture Workers, etc., to be seeded with Aadhaar.
- To improve the implementation efficiency of the social security services for the unorganized workers.(ii) Integration of Social Security Schemes meant for UWs being administered by MoLE and subsequently those run by other ministries as well.
- Sharing of information in respect of registered unorganized workers with various stakeholders such as Ministries/ Departments/ Boards/ Agencies/ Organizations of the Central & State Governments through APIs for delivery of various social security and welfare schemes being administered by them.
- Portability of the social security and welfare benefits to the migrant and construction workers.
- Providing a comprehensive database to Central and State Governments for tackling any National Crises like COVID-19 in future.
Analytics
Under the umbrella of E-Shram all-India registrations of unorganized sector workers are continuously undertaken. The following analysis is based on the data available on the portal as of 15th June 2022.
The First Pie Chart represents participants in the registration process for the E-Shram portal. The data consists of only Five states which are the high performers or the States in which the maximum population have taken part in the registration process. Uttar Pradesh is the top contributor with 82,859,392 registrations, Followed by Bihar. One could notice that the top contributor States are majorly the States with higher populations. One could also see the dominance of BIMARU States in registration.
The Second Pie Chart represents the States and the Union Territories which are the least contributors in terms of Participation of the People in the registration process of the E-Shram portal. While comparing the two graphs one might feel that these least performers are contributing nothing significant or extremely less. But one shall also take into consideration the area of the states to be compared, the Population, the income, the lifestyle, and density of population, infrastructural factors and many other factors. Population in Uttar Pradesh is 20.24 croresand that of Goa state is 18.02 lakhs, which approximately rounds to 1%. Also, one could think of two reasons for the less participation of the people in the registrations. One could be there is no need for such portal which means that the labor force is so well managed or covered that there is really very less INFORMAL workforce. The other reason could be people are still not aware or technologically advanced of such a kind of positive action implemented by the Government. Further research is needed to comment on the actual conclusion or reason. But as per the data Lakshadweep has the least participants in terms of registrations followed by Sikkam, Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Goa, these are the facts.
To explore the registrations from gender perspective, the graph above for 10 states, with the same top 5 and bottom 5 states has been created. The participation of the Women section has an edge over the men’s participation. At Least the participation of Women is equal to men’s proportion or they are more in number than the men. Women lead the registrations in Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, and fall behind in Bihar and West Bengal.
As can be observed from the graph above, the highest participation is shown by the participants between 18 – 40 years of age. This age group is really dominant, representing more than 50% of the participants followed by elderly population. The participants of age 40 – 50 and above 50 also have a significant percentage. The population of 16 – 18 years old does not exceed 5% however; this population is still really significant when calculated with such a huge population if compared to India. The highest number of registrations in this age category has been done in Uttar Pradesh and the lowest have been done in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
From 18-40 years of participants, Bihar leads all the states with a total of 65.24% of the registered population and Goa witnesses the minimum of 50.14% of workers. On the contrary, Goa has the highest percentage of registered workers from the age category of 40-50 years old and 50 and above years.
The Horizontal bar graph above depicts the occupation-wise distribution of the participants in the registration process on the E-Shram portal. For each state, the occupational composition and registrations differ. However, with no competition in the Agriculture sector, leads the work-force that have shown enthusiastic participation in the registration process on the portal for top five and bottom five states. To understand the phenomenon, let us explore one state as an example. Out of total registrations completed in Goa, 24.51% workers belong to agriculture; 21.29% are domestic workers; 15.5% are from construction sector; 12.53% work in Apparel; 18.44% are involved in activities considered as Miscellaneous; and 7.72% of workers are in automobile and transport sector.
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