Government to link e-Shram with Unnati job portal for blue, grey collar workforce: Sources

Representative image (REUTERS/Amit Dave)

The government plans to link the National Database for Unorganised Workers under the e-Shram portal with Unnati, a proposed job matching portal, people aware of the matter told Moneycontrol.

The officials said the idea is to provide job opportunities to blue- and grey-collar workers registered on e-Shram.

“We are now linking e-Shram with Unnati. The Unnati portal as you must be aware was earlier the National Career Service (NCS) portal launched by the labour ministry. Now the NCS is being upgraded to Unnati which will be linked to e-Shram,” said a senior official.

According to the official, Unnati would be accessible to both employers and prospective employees for work involving physical labour. It serves as a platform for workers to be visible and for employers to hire the people of their choice.

“Every information about the workers is available on e-Shram, we just have to provide another layer by linking Unnati to it. Now the companies will be able to find all the workers at the same place,” the official added.

As per the sources, the work to link Unnati with e-Shram is likely to begin in a month.

The e-Shram portal, launched on August 26, is a platform for the benefit of an estimated 38 crore informal and unorganised workers including construction, gig, domestic, agricultural and migrant workers, apart from street vendors and other similar sub-groups. As of November 25, some 9.11 crore unorganised workers had registered on the portal,

Once registered, informal workers are allotted an e-Shram card with a 12-digit universal account number to avail of the government’s social security schemes. The account number is valid throughout the country.

The database will serve as a reference point for the authorities to track and reach out to informal workers and offer them relief in times of crisis.

The finance ministry approved the creation of the database in November 2020. The task was entrusted to the labour and employment ministry, which developed the portal in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre, an arm of the government that provides technology-driven solutions.