e-Shram Portal Digital Social Security for the Unorganised Workforce (UPSC/RAS/PSI) Current Affairs {Economy}

Ministry of Labour and Employment to integrate the unorganised workforce into a formal database.
Created the National Database of Unorganised Workers (NDUW), marking India’s first Aadhaar-authenticated registry for the informal sector.
Assigns a portable, unique 12-digit Universal Account Number (UAN) to every registered worker for seamless identity verification.
Achieved massive national scale, registering 31.89 crore unorganised workers.
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra have emerged as the top five states in total registrations.
Common Service Centres (CSCs) have served as the primary mobilization channel for enrollments, followed by direct self-registration.

Women represent the majority of the registered workforce, accounting for 54.28% compared to 45.72% for men.
The prime working-age demographic of 18–40 years constitutes the absolute majority, making up 55.21% of the database.
Workers aged 40–50 years account for 24.18%, while senior workers above the age of 50 represent 20.53%.
Juvenile laborers in the 16–18 years age bracket make up a minor 0.08% of the total registered workforce.
The portal is dominated by workers from the agriculture, domestic and household work, construction, and apparel sectors.
The registry successfully captures emerging employment models, having onboarded approximately 11.5 lakh gig and platform workers.

In October 2024, the portal expanded beyond a basic registry to become the "e-Shram One-Stop Solution".
The integrated dashboard brings together 15 distinct social security and welfare schemes onto a single, unified platform.
Registered workers can directly identify eligible schemes and track the delivery of the benefits they have received.
It links basic survival needs by integrating the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) for food security and PMAY-G for rural housing.
Features direct linkage with the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and the myScheme portal for targeted welfare discovery.
Introduced multilingual functionality via the Bhashini platform in 2025, expanding digital accessibility across 22 Indian languages.

Facilitates direct worker enrollment into the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan Yojana (PM-SYM) for old-age financial security.
Under PM-SYM, eligible beneficiaries are guaranteed a minimum assured pension of ₹3,000 per month upon reaching 60 years of age.
Enables seamless enrollment into the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) for accidental coverage.
PMSBY provides a safety net of up to ₹2 lakh in the event of accidental death or permanent disability.
Integrates the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) to provide a ₹2 lakh life insurance cover for death from any cause.
Centralizing this data allows policymakers to design appropriate financial interventions and direct benefit transfers (DBT) without targeting errors.

Integrates with the National Career Service (NCS) to provide active employment opportunities and job-matching for informal laborers.
Connects registered workers directly to the Skill India Digital Hub to access specialized skilling and apprenticeship programs.
Captures detailed family information of migrant workers to ensure that social security entitlements are not disrupted during interstate movement.
Enhances cooperative federalism by facilitating the direct sharing of construction workers' data with respective States and Union Territories.
Enables mobile laborers to easily register with localized Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Welfare Boards.
Transforms welfare administration by ensuring that benefits remain portable, regardless of a worker's physical geography or migration status.

Source: PIB