Evaluate the role of digital public infrastructure (UAN, e-Shram, EPFO 3.0) in making social security portable and easier to access.

Digital public infrastructure (DPI) is a set of shared digital systems, linked to Aadhaar, that lets social security follow the worker instead of the employer. EPFO contributing members rose from 3.49 crore to about 7.98 crore [1]. DPI has clearly made benefits more portable and easier to reach for formal workers. Its record for informal workers is weaker.

Strengths: portability and access

• Portability across jobs: UAN links a member's PF accounts across employers, so savings move with the worker [1].
• Self-service onboarding: Workers can generate and activate UAN themselves through Aadhaar face authentication on UMANG, so they depend less on employers [2].
• Faster claims: EPFO 3.0 runs on core banking, cloud and APIs. Claims that pass risk checks are auto-settled in about 3 days instead of up to 20 [1][3].
• Simpler withdrawals: 13 partial-withdrawal provisions have been merged into three categories, and cheque-leaf uploads have been dropped [1].
• Informal and gig workers: e-Shram has 31.89 crore registrations [1]. Its Aadhaar-linked ID keeps benefits portable across platforms under the Code on Social Security, 2020 [4].

Limitations

• Registration is not a benefit: PM-SYM has just over 54 lakh members, under 2% of e-Shram registrants [1][5]. The database has not yet become a way to deliver benefits.
• Digital exclusion: Benefits depend on Aadhaar, mobile and bank-account links. Many PM-SYM accounts became dormant because contributions stopped or linked bank accounts changed [5].
• Weak back end: The CAG flagged an asset-liability mismatch at EPFO and found it has no ombudsman [6]. Faster portals do not fix funding gaps or complaint handling.
• Structural limit: 88.4% of workers are informal [7]. DPI can only carry benefits that already exist. One wage-ceiling change added 51 lakh workers in a single step [8], which shows that policy design matters more than platforms.

Verdict DPI has done a lot for portability and ease of access in the formal sector. For informal workers it has mainly made them visible but has not yet given most of them protection.

UAN, e-Shram and EPFO 3.0 have built the rails, but the benefits on them are still limited. The way forward is to use each e-Shram registration to enrol the worker in a scheme they are eligible for, to add an EPFO ombudsman, and to support people offline. Together these steps would turn digital reach into the universal social protection promised by Article 41 and SDG 1.3.