Why is E-SHRAM portal important for labourers? Expert Dr Shyam Sundar explains

Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav launched e-SHRAM, a portal to maintain a database of unorganised workers, on August 26, 2021. The purpose of this portal is to integrate all the social welfare schemes available for the benefit of unorganised workers.

Dr K R Shyam Sundar, a professor at XLRI and a labour economist, stated that the e-SHRAM portal is long overdue. In this podcast, Dr Shyam Sundar also emphasised the necessity of triple identification for registration such as legal verification, Aadhar identity and bank account verification. He also highlighted the need to decentralise the entire system.

Dr Shyam Sundar also said that the portal aims to help unorganised workers realise their benefits. The Ministry of Labour, state governments, trade unions and common services centers (CSCs) will coordinate to register workers on the portal. The registered worker will receive an e-Shram card and a 12-digit number. The workers will be covered by an accidental insurance and will receive ₹2 lakh in case of death or permanent disability and ₹1 lakh in case of partial disability.

The Labour Ministry also set up a national toll-free number “14434″ to address registration-related queries. Listen in, to get more details on this portal.