Pension, Health Benefits for Workers on e-Shram Portal
Over 270 million unorganized workers registered on the e-Shram portal will soon get pension and health benefits, over and above the accidental cover, as the labour ministry works towards enhancing the benefits basket for these workers.
Some beneficial schemes that can be added include Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana, the National Pension Scheme for traders and self-employed, the Atal Pension Yojana, and the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, among others.
Currently, workers who register themselves on the e-Shram portal get ₹2 lakh accidental coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana. There are 279.7 million workers registered on the e-Shram portal as of date.
India has an estimated 480 million workers, out of which 380 million are in the unorganized sector and the remaining 100 million in the organized sector, getting pension and provident fund benefits.
The Centre is in talks with states to link their social security schemes with the central portal so that the number of benefits to the unorganized workers can be maximized. “This can be done by enabling migration of data between the central portal and the state portals and vice-versa,”
A high-level committee under the additional secretary (labour) has been formed to finalize the standard operating procedures, which will kick-start data integration. The plan is to get the domicile and ration card details of such unorganized workers from state governments and seed them with the existing information on the portal. This will ensure that the eligibility for benefits to these workers continues even after the change of location due to reverse migration or back as had happened during the pandemic-induced lockdown.
The Social Security Code, 2020 calls for universal social security for all workers. Besides, it allows the government to frame new policies for gig and platform workers and other unorganized workers, under the umbrella of existing social security schemes including the Employees’ Provident Fund and Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).
The government has already enabled the portability of the e-Shram portal with the EPFO to allow mobility of workers between the unorganized and organized sectors and vice-versa.