The Ministry of Labour & Employment (MoLE) has registered about 1 million gig workers on the e-Shram portal so far, and is likely to register 3-4 million in the next three months, a senior official told Moneycontrol today.
“The registration of gig workers is an ongoing process, and we’re working in line with the Budget announcement,” the person said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her budget '25 speech, had said that the Centre will provide identity cards to gig workers and register them on the e-Shram portal. “They will (also) be provided healthcare under the PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). This is likely to assist nearly 10 million gig workers,” she had said.
The official said that the workers are now eligible to claim healthcare insurance under the PM-JAY, and they will also get access to social security schemes.
The social security schemes linked with the e-Shram portal are Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan Yojana (PM-SYM), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Yojana (PMJJBY), Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), and Atal Pension Yojana (APY).
Moneycontrol had reported last week that by the end of September 2025, the union government is aiming to provide social security cover to about 60 percent of the population. As of 2024-end, this figure stood at 49 percent.
In a recent report, the International Labour Organization (ILO) had highlighted that India’s social protection coverage had doubled from 24.4 percent in 2021 to 48.8 percent in 2024, due to government initiatives, which have extended health insurance, pension, and employment support (under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme) to millions of individuals.
However, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) says that nearly 920 million people, or 65 percent of the population, are now covered by at least one form of social protection, whether in cash or kind, through central government schemes.
According to official data, as of March 2025, 399.4 million Ayushman Bharat cards had been issued under PM-JAY, offering free health cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family. More than 800 million individuals are receiving free food grains under PM-GKAY; and about 307 million unorganised workers have been registered on e-Shram, through which they create a Universal Account Number (UAN) for enhanced social security. As of March 3, 2025, 54 percent of the workers registered on e-Shram are women.
The APY, launched in 2015, aims to provide pension to poor, underprivileged, and unorganised workers. As of December 31, 2024, 72.5 million beneficiaries had enrolled in APY, which had an accumulated corpus of Rs 43,370 crore.
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