e-Shram portal

Indian Economy glossary

Also called: e-Shram, Universal Account Number, UAN · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The e-Shram portal is the Ministry of Labour & Employment's national database of unorganised workers, launched in 2021. Any such worker can register by giving their own details (self-declaration) and gets an Aadhaar-linked e-Shram UAN (Universal Account Number).

It matters because about 89% of India's workers were informal in 2019-20, and most of them had no record with any government office. e-Shram gives them an identity that welfare schemes can use. It is now the main way in for social security for gig and platform workers, such as AB-PMJAY health cover.

Explanation

How it works

  • Who registers: unorganised workers. These are people without EPF/ESIC-type cover, such as construction workers, street vendors, farm labourers, domestic workers, and gig and platform workers.
  • How: the worker gives their own details about their job, income and skills. This is self-declaration. Nobody checks the claim against employer records.
  • What they get: an e-Shram UAN. This is a single number linked to their Aadhaar.
  • Why one number helps: it is portable (it moves with the worker).
  • A migrant who changes job, employer or state keeps the same number.

  • A rider who works on two or three apps at once still has only one identity.

  • What it is not: e-Shram does not pay any benefit by itself. It is a database and gateway. Schemes such as AB-PMJAY and PM-SYM use it to find and reach workers.

Its place in the law

  • The Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008 first planned a registry with identity cards for unorganised workers. That Act is now subsumed (absorbed) in the Code on Social Security, 2020.
  • The Code is the first Indian law to define gig worker (a person who earns outside the usual employer–employee relationship) and platform worker (a gig worker who finds customers through an online app).
  • Social Security (Central) Rules, 2026 (notified 08 May 2026):
  • Registration of gig and platform workers on a Central portal is now mandatory.

  • Aggregators (the app companies, such as food-delivery and ride apps) must share worker data through an API, a direct computer-to-computer data link.

  • National Social Security Boards (notified 30 Oct 2026) recommend and monitor schemes for these workers. e-Shram is the registration base those schemes depend on.

What raises or lowers coverage

  • Pull factors (benefits linked to registration) raise it.
  • Budget 2025-26 linked e-Shram registration, ID cards and AB-PMJAY cover for online platform workers.

  • A real benefit gives workers a reason to sign up.

  • Mandatory, platform-led registration raises it.

  • Under the 2026 Rules, the platform's own records can register workers.

  • Workers no longer have to come forward on their own.

  • Self-declaration and low awareness lower it.

  • Workers have to know about the portal, trust it and register themselves.
  • When PRS analysed the 2007 Bill, it found the same weakness. There was no process to check a worker's self-declaration.

Worked example: how much of the gig workforce is covered?

  • Gig and platform workers on e-Shram (Nov 2025): 5.09 lakh
  • NITI Aayog estimate of gig workers (2020-21): 77 lakh
  • Coverage ≈ 5.09 ÷ 77 × 100 ≈ 6.6%, so fewer than 7 in 100.
  • Against the 2.35 crore projected for 2029-30, today's figure would be only about 2%.
  • Lesson: total registrations look huge, but the gig segment is badly under-registered.

In India

  • Managed by: the Ministry of Labour & Employment.
  • Scale:
  • 31.38 crore unorganised workers registered by Nov 2025.

  • Of these, only 5.09 lakh are gig/platform workers.

  • Benefits linked to it:

  • AB-PMJAY: health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for platform workers registered on e-Shram, announced in Budget 2025-26. This is the first concrete benefit for gig workers delivered through e-Shram.
  • PM-SYM (2019): a contributory pension of ₹3,000 a month at age 60 for unorganised workers.

  • Atal Pension Yojana (2015): a second pension option.

  • Role in formalisation. Formalisation means workers and firms moving into the registered, recorded economy. e-Shram is one of its drivers, along with:

  • GST registration;
  • digital payments;
  • Udyam registration of MSMEs;

  • EPFO/ESIC enrolment.

  • Portable welfare. It sits alongside the EPFO's UAN for provident fund and One Nation One Ration Card for migrants.

  • Constitutional basis: social security is on the Concurrent List. So both the Centre and the states run schemes that can use e-Shram data.

Don't confuse with

  • EPFO UAN: this is the provident-fund account number of formal employees, and it comes with employer contributions. The e-Shram UAN is for unorganised workers, is based on self-declaration and comes with no contribution by itself.
  • National Social Security Board: this is a statutory body that recommends and monitors schemes. e-Shram is only the database those schemes use. Neither one pays benefits directly.
  • National Career Service portal: this is a job-matching portal that took over the work of the old employment exchanges. e-Shram is a welfare registry, not a job portal.
  • Formal employment: a written contract plus PF, pension and health cover. Registering on e-Shram does not make a job formal. The worker is still in informal employment.

Prelims Hooks

  • e-Shram was launched in 2021 as a national database of unorganised workers. It issues a UAN on a self-declaration basis.
  • Registrations: 31.38 crore by Nov 2025, including only 5.09 lakh gig/platform workers.
  • Budget 2025-26 linked e-Shram registration to AB-PMJAY cover (₹5 lakh/family/year) for online platform workers.
  • The Social Security (Central) Rules, 2026 (08 May 2026) made gig-worker registration mandatory and require aggregators to share data through API.
  • The parent law is the Code on Social Security, 2020. The 2008 Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act is subsumed in it. Trap: e-Shram is not under the 2008 Act today.
  • Trap: "Registration on e-Shram makes a worker a formal-sector employee": FALSE.

Mains Points

  • Scale vs depth. Over 31 crore registrations show reach. But self-declaration without checks and the low gig share (fewer than 7 in 100 of NITI Aayog's 77 lakh) mean registration is not the same as protection. Coverage should be judged by how many workers actually receive health, pension and accident cover, not by sign-ups.
  • From self-registration to platform-led registration.
  • The 2026 Rules' API link lets platform records register workers.
  • It could also let each aggregator's contribution be credited to the worker's own e-Shram UAN.

  • This matters for workers who use several apps, and it is key to making the aggregator levy (1–2% of turnover, capped at 5% of payouts) work.

  • Identity is not a right.

  • e-Shram gives portable identity and access to schemes.
  • It does not settle whether a gig worker is really an employee, or give a minimum wage or protection against being removed from an app.
  • So it is a welfare floor, not a replacement for labour rights.
  • It is useful for GS-II answers on welfare delivery and cooperative federalism (both the Centre and the states use it), and GS-III answers on informality.

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