For generations, a vast segment of India’s working population has existed in the economic shadows, contributing immensely to its growth yet remaining largely invisible to the state. This silent workforce, comprising an estimated 82% of the nation’s labor force, has long been a monumental challenge for policymakers seeking to build an inclusive economy. In response, India has launched one of the most ambitious digital governance projects in the world: the eShram platform, a groundbreaking initiative designed to weave a digital safety net for millions.
The platform represents a paradigm shift in how the government engages with its most vulnerable workers. By providing a formal identity, access to social security, and direct pathways to employment, eShram is not merely a database but a digital lifeline. It stands as a testament to the country’s commitment to leveraging technology to formalize its economy from the ground up, bringing millions of unregistered workers into the fold for the first time in the nation’s history.
Understanding India’s Informal Labor Landscape
The sheer scale of India’s informal workforce is staggering, with estimates placing the number at around 400 million people. This diverse group includes construction laborers, street vendors, domestic helpers, agricultural workers, and gig economy participants who form the backbone of daily economic life. Despite their critical contributions, their work has historically been characterized by its transient and undocumented nature.
This lack of formal recognition has trapped them in a cycle of vulnerability. Without formal employment contracts or a digital footprint, these workers have faced inconsistent income streams, exploitation by intermediaries, and a complete absence of social security benefits. Pensions, health insurance, and accident coverage—staples of the formal sector—have remained out of reach, leaving millions of families without a safety net in times of crisis.
The eShram Platform Core Features and Achievements
At its heart, the eShram platform was conceived with a clear and powerful objective: to create the first-ever comprehensive national database of unorganized workers. This foundational registry serves as the single source of truth for understanding the demographics, skills, and needs of the informal sector, enabling targeted policy interventions and efficient delivery of social welfare schemes.
Launched in August 2021, the platform’s success has been remarkable. In just a few years, it has onboarded over 300 million workers, a milestone that underscores both the immense need for such a system and its effective implementation. Each registered worker receives an eShram card with a unique 12-digit Universal Account Number (UAN), cementing their identity within the national economic framework and opening doors to a new world of opportunities.
A Robust Technological Foundation
The monumental task of registering hundreds of millions of people is supported by a sophisticated technological architecture. Developed by the National Informatics Centre, the eShram platform is powered by Microsoft Azure’s scalable and secure cloud infrastructure. This robust foundation is critical for handling the immense data flow and ensuring the system remains responsive and reliable for users across the country.
The platform’s technical prowess is evident in its capacity, engineered to process up to 172,000 transactions per second and accommodate as many as 8 million new registrations daily. Leveraging advanced cloud services such as Kubernetes for container orchestration and Cosmos DB for a globally distributed database, the system maintains high performance and low latency, ensuring a seamless user experience even at peak loads.
Overcoming Accessibility Barriers
Recognizing that many informal workers have limited digital literacy or access to smartphones, the initiative adopted a dual strategy to ensure no one was left behind. A vast physical network of over 450,000 Common Services Centers (CSCs) was mobilized across the country. These local centers provide in-person assistance, helping workers navigate the registration process with the support of trained operators.
To dismantle language barriers in a nation with immense linguistic diversity, the platform integrates Bhashini, an advanced AI-powered translation tool. This feature provides real-time translation in 22 local languages, making the digital interface intuitive and accessible to workers from every corner of India. This commitment to inclusivity is a cornerstone of the platform’s design, ensuring that technology serves as a bridge rather than a barrier.
Integrating with National Career Services
The eShram platform transcends its role as a simple registry by connecting workers directly to tangible employment opportunities. A crucial element of this strategy is its integration with the National Career Service (NCS) portal, a government-run job marketplace. This linkage transforms the database into a dynamic gateway to the formal job market.
Since this integration, approximately 17.8 million eShram registrants have successfully joined the NCS platform, gaining access to verified job listings, career counseling, and vocational training resources. This connection empowers workers to move beyond precarious, informal work toward more stable and secure employment, fostering upward economic mobility.
A Unique Approach to Labor Formalization
What sets India’s initiative apart is its innovative use of digital public infrastructure to directly empower workers. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on complex bureaucratic channels, eShram creates a direct, transparent link between individuals and the benefits they are entitled to. This disintermediation is a powerful tool against corruption and inefficiency.
Furthermore, the project’s sheer scale and holistic vision are unprecedented. It is not merely a registration drive but a comprehensive ecosystem that combines digital identity with access to social security, financial services, and career-building resources. By tackling the challenge of formalization from multiple angles, the initiative offers a more sustainable and impactful solution.
Current Status and Future Enhancements
The evolution of the eShram ecosystem continues. To make job searching even more accessible, plans are underway to launch a dedicated mobile application. This app will feature AI-driven chatbots to guide users and a location-based manager to help workers find relevant job opportunities in their vicinity, particularly in smaller Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities where formal job portals have limited reach.
In the long term, the vision is to leverage the rich data collected through eShram to inform and shape national labor policies. This data-driven approach will enable better skills-matching for both domestic and international job markets, helping to create safer employment pathways and reduce reliance on exploitative recruitment brokers who prey on vulnerable workers.
Reflection and Broader Impacts
Reflection
The initiative’s primary strengths lie in its immense scalability, sophisticated technological framework, and unwavering focus on last-mile accessibility. By combining a powerful digital platform with a robust physical support network, eShram has successfully navigated the complex challenges of digital and linguistic diversity to reach a massive segment of the population.
However, significant challenges remain. Ensuring that registration translates into the consistent delivery of benefits is a critical next step. Moreover, safeguarding the personal and biometric data of hundreds of millions of vulnerable individuals is a paramount responsibility that requires constant vigilance and the highest standards of data security and privacy protection.
Broader Impact
The platform’s potential to disrupt exploitative labor practices is one of its most profound impacts. By creating a transparent and direct channel for employment, eShram can systematically marginalize the informal recruitment brokers who have long profited from the information asymmetry in the labor market, thereby creating safer and fairer working conditions.
The success of eShram has positioned it as a global model for leveraging digital public infrastructure for social good. India has showcased the platform at the International Labour Conference and has offered its technological framework as a public good to other developing nations. This initiative could serve as a blueprint for countries worldwide grappling with the challenge of formalizing their own workforces.
Paving the Way for a Digitally Inclusive Future
In a few short years, the eShram platform achieved what was once considered nearly impossible: it provided a formal identity and a digital connection to the mainstream economy for hundreds of millions of informal workers. This monumental effort has laid the foundation for a more equitable and inclusive labor market, empowering individuals who were once invisible with the tools for economic advancement.
This model of digital empowerment has demonstrated how technology can be harnessed not just for economic growth, but for social justice. The lessons learned from India’s experience offered a powerful vision for the future—one where digital infrastructure serves as the great equalizer, redefining labor rights and economic inclusion on a global scale.
