Building a universal social safety net for India’s informal workforce
The article highlights the critical need for a universal and portable social safety net for India's vast informal workforce, which constitutes over 90% of the working population. While the e-Shram portal has successfully registered over 300 million workers, providing a digital identity, it doesn't automatically translate into social security. The current welfare design suffers from fragmentation and lack of portability, particularly penalizing inter-State migrant workers. The author proposes a unified 'universal social security account' linked to Aadhaar, ensuring seamless access to benefits like accident insurance, healthcare (integrated with Ayushman Bharat), and old-age pension, irrespective of location or job changes. This framework would be financed through pooled funding mechanisms, combining central allocations with a welfare cess on digital platforms and micro-contributions from workers, aiming to provide lifelong resilience and dignity to the informal sector.
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