A group of people are seen harvesting a paddy field near Chümoukidema in this photo taken November 2, 2021. According to e-Sharm portal, out of 1.73 lakh registered unorganised workers in Nagaland, a total 1.09 lakh or 63.41% were engaged in agriculture and allied sector as of December 12. (Morung File Photo: For representational purposes only)
Moa Jamir
Dimapur | December 13
Out of 1,73,438 workers in the unorganised sector from Nagaland registered on e-Shram portal till December 12, a total of 1,60,117 were earning Rs 10,000 or less per month, informed data available on the portal.
The represents 92.32% of those registered on the portal reflecting the low income of workers in the unorganised sector.
The e-Shram portal is a national database of the Unorganised Workers (UWs) launched by the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment (MoLE) on August 26, 2021.
Nagaland’s income slab, top occupation sectors
In addition, a total of 5.92% or 10,274 workers were in the income slab of Rs 10,001-15,000, indicating that almost all 1.73 lakh registered workers were living with income below Rs 15,000 per month.
A mere 385 workers were in the Rs 21,001 & above income slab while 524 were in Rs 18,001-21,000 category. A total of 2137 workers were earning Rs 15001-18000 a month.
However, Nagaland’s status was little better than the national average as a total of 94.34% or 11.01 crore out of 11.67 crore registered workers in India were in the Rs 10,001-15,000, as per the data on December 12.
Meanwhile, out of 1.73 lakh registered workers, as of December 12 in Nagaland, 96,900 were female (55.87%) while 63,210 (35.45%) were male. A total of 7 gave the gender registrations as ‘Others.’
Age-wise, majority of the registered workers were in the 18-40 years age group with a total of 99,696 (57.48%) falling under the category. It was followed by 40-50 age group (35,991 or 20.75%) and ‘Above 50’ at 19,974 workers or 11.52%. The rest – 4456 were in the 18-18 years age group.
In terms of social category, 94.8% (1,64,374) of workers registered in Nagaland were Scheduled Tribe while 3.4% (5902) belonged to ‘General category. The rest were ‘Other Backward Class’ (OBC) – 1725 and Scheduled Caste- 1385.
A total of 98,245 registered workers had a bank account while 1.76% were without one. While 1.50 lakh workers registered on the portal through Common Service Centres, 23,034 self-registered.
Meanwhile, the top employer in Nagaland was the agriculture sector with a total of 1.09 lakh (63.41%) of the registered workers giving it as their occupation. Categories under Agriculture included farm cultivators as well as labourers, gardening and horticulture, dairy and poultry farming, forestry labourers etc.
The next top occupation sector was ‘Construction’ with 18,997 (10.95%) registrations. Construction activities included housing, masonry, brick layers, electrical line installer and repairers, plumbers, painters etc.
At 8,282 (4.78%) miscellaneous including salesperson, street vendors (excluding food), delivery persons, religious professionals, receptionists, athletic coaches, fitness trainers and so on came next.
‘Domestic and Household Workers’ at 6,658 (3.85%) and Handicraft and Carpets at 5520 (3.18%) followed respectively in terms of standalone categories. The former included domestic cooks, cleaners and helpers, pantry persons, launderers etc while the latter included weavers, knitters, basket and mat weavers, handicraft workers in both textile and woods and so on.
What is e-Shram portal?
The portal created as a centralised database of all UWs, among others, is aimed at improving the “implementation efficiency of the social security services for the UWs and integration of Social Security Schemes meant for UWs being administered by MoLE and subsequently by other ministries as well.
In future, all the social security benefits of unorganized workers will be delivered through this portal. In emergency and national pandemic like situations, this database may be utilized to provide necessary assistance to the eligible unorganized workers.
According to the MoLE, after registering, the UWs will get an accidental insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh under PMSBY. Nominee or family member of UWs can file a claim on such insurance along with relevant documents on the e-Shram portal/nearest CSC.
As per the Ministry, any worker who is unorganised and aged between 16-59, is eligible to register on the portal. For free registration, Aadhaar number, mobile number linked with Aadhaar and savings bank account number are required.
Upon registration, a 12 digits number Universal Account Number (UAN) is uniquely assigned to each UW. The UAN is a permanent number i.e. once assigned it will remain unchanged for the worker’s lifetime.
Unorganised Sector & Unorganised Workers
As per the MoLE, the unorganised sector “comprises of establishment/units which are engaged in the production/sale of goods/services and employs less than 10 workers.”
These units are neither covered under Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) nor Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
A UW is defined as “any worker who is a home based-worker, self-employed worker or a wage worker in the unorganised sector including a worker in the organised sector who is not a member of ESIC or EPFO or not a government employee.”
