E-Shram Needs Some Hard Work To Get Going

Context: Ministry of Labour and Employment launched the e-Shram web portal for creating a National Database of Unorganized Workers (NDUW). It is an important step towards worker’s welfare, but there are lots of challenges to be addressed.

Challenges associated with E-Shram portal

• A long herculean task at hand: Registering 400 million workers in the portal is itself a herculean task that too under the shadow of digital divide where the unorganised worker is devoid of digital infrastructure.
  • Micro-level implementation challenges: Support from trade unions, multiple media outlets having linguistic diversity for effective dissemination of information, holding camps, efficient grievance redressal mechanisms.
  • Aadhar seeding is controversial in North-Eastern states: Also, workers may not have either Aadhar or Aadhar seeded with mobile number making them ineligible for registration under NDUW.
• Definitional issues: The very identity of unorganised worker is problematic as many are circular migrant workers and they quickly, even unpredictably, move from one trade to another.
  • Yet to see whether the mechanical and assumptions-based portal registration will be able to capture the complexities and dynamics involved regarding them
• Scope for hurting ease of doing business: While the Government can appeal to employers to register their workers, any penal measure will hurt the ease of doing business.
• Data security issues: Potential for abuse as it is a mega-sized database.
  • Absence of national architecture on data security: The central government would have to share data with State governments whose data security capacities vary from state-to-state.
  • Interoperability challenges: As Centre and State are infested with problems of coordination and complexities in cyber infrastructure and other areas of ease of operational efficiency.
• Systemic exclusion issues:
  • EPF/ESI covered workers excluded: Lakhs of contract and fixed-term contract workers will be excluded from the universe of UW.
  • Status of gig workers unclear: Legally unclear whether the gig/platform worker can be classified first as a worker at all (the other three Labour Codes do not include these workers), and second as organised or unorganised workers.
  • Age discrimination: NDUW excludes millions of workers aged over 59 from its ambit. Given the frugal or no social security for them, their exclusion will badly hurt their welfare.
• Possibility of corruption as middle level agencies like internet providers may charge exorbitant charges to register and print E-Shram cards.

Conclusion: E-Shram is a vital system to provide hitherto invisible workers much needed visibility by providing Labour Citizenship Document to them. E-Triple linking Shram Card (seeded with bank account), ONOR (One Nation One Ration) Card and Election commission Card will go a long way in labour welfare.