Enrolment rising steadily on e-Shram portal, 8.43 cr registered till Nov 20

In the previous six weeks since October 5, a spike in registration of unorganised sector workers through State Seva Kendras has been recorded.

The largest such increase occurred in the preceding week (November 9 to 16), almost doubling from 24,842 to 53,970 registrations. As on November 20, the number of such registrations stands at 86,067, it stated. Over the past 12 weeks, the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar posted the highest average growth rates of more than 15 per cent in registration of workers on the e-Shram portal, the statement said.

In the 12th week (November 9 to 16), registrations were particularly high for Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and moderately high in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Odisha and Bihar. As of November 20, the top five occupational categories for workers registered on the portal are -- agriculture (53.2 per cent, 4,48,76,425 registrations), construction (12.1 per cent, 1,02,58,713), domestic and household workers (8.8 per cent, 74,22,236), apparel (6.3 per cent, 52,89,110) and capital goods and manufacturing (3.3 per cent, 27,60,050 registrations). Further, two important sub-categories of agriculture workers are 'crop farm labourers' and 'field crop and vegetable growers' (with nearly 20 lakh registrations), it added.

The top five occupational categories of women unorganised sector workers are -- agriculture (2.1 crore), domestic and household workers (71 lakh), apparel (46 lakh), construction (23 lakh) and miscellaneous (17.98 lakh).

Correspondingly, the top five occupational categories for male workers are -- agriculture (2.3 crore), construction (78 lakh), automobile and transportation (22.1 lakh), capital goods and manufacturing (18.9 lakh) and miscellaneous (7.7 lakh). Initially, a lower share of workers getting registered on the portal were providing details of their bank accounts.

However, this share has gone up substantially, from 47 per cent in the first week to 86.3 per cent in the 12th week, it said. Additionally, nominee details of the workers were provided by only 38 per cent of workers in the first week and 88 per cent in the 12th week. Income-group wise analysis shows that on an average, 91 per cent of the total workers registered are in the monthly income slab of less than Rs 10,000.

The share of workers in the monthly income slab of Rs 21,000 and above is just 0.61 per cent. Gender-wise analysis indicates that during the first six weeks after the portal's launch, among the workers getting registered, the share of male workers was slightly higher (more than 51 per cent). However, in the last six weeks, the share of females workers has become higher as compared to the males.

As on November 20, out of the total registrations, 48.2 per cent (4,06,86,429) were male workers and 51.8 per cent (4,37,00,713) female workers. The registration for 'others' in terms of gender has been slow, with around 2,095 total registrations completed by November 20, it stated. The e-Shram portal is aimed at building a comprehensive National Database of Unorganised Workers (NDUW). The portal seeks to boost last-mile delivery of welfare schemes for over 38 crore unorganised workers in the country.