New Delhi: The absence of reliable data on informal workers (including gig workers) in cities, the lack of affordable credit and financial services for them; and the need to strengthen skill development, among others, are some of the key issues likely to be discussed at the fourth national conference of chief secretaries, which is likely to be held in November, ThePrint has learnt.
The high-level meeting, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will deliberate on promoting entrepreneurship, employment, and skilling by leveraging the demographic dividend of the country in urban areas.
For this, various ministries are holding stakeholder consultations on three sub-themes: Creating enabling ecosystems with a focus on tier 2 and tier 3 cities (for manufacturing and service sector); small and micro enterprises (SME) and informal employment (in rural and urban areas); and green economy (renewable energy and circular economy).
The Ministry of Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME), which is the nodal ministry for the ‘MSME and informal employment’ sub-theme, has prepared concept notes identifying the key challenges that need to be addressed to create employment opportunities and provide social security to those involved in gig and other informal work. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and other ministries are working on other two sub-themes.
The SME ministry, along with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), held meetings with sector experts last month to prepare the concept note on the sub-theme.
“We have shared the concept note with state governments and Union territories for their comments. The main issues will be finalised after incorporating their inputs. We have identified issues that need to be addressed to generate employment opportunities,” said a senior MSME official.
The SME ministry has looked at three key areas—gig economy, skilling, and enterprise development, identified the gaps, and also proposed interventions, according to concept notes shared with stakeholders and seen by ThePrint.
ThePrint reached the MSME for a comment via email and WhatsApp. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
The national conference of chief secretaries is a step towards strengthening the partnership between the Centre and the state governments. The first conference was held in 2022 in Dharamshala to discuss three core areas: implementation of the National Education Policy; urban governance; and crop diversification and achieving self-sufficiency in oilseeds, pulses and other agri-commodities.
The second conference, which was held in January last year in Delhi, focused on six areas, such as women’s empowerment, thrust on MSME, health and nutrition among others. The third conference, which was held in Delhi in December last year, focused on ease of living.
Reliable data for gig and other informal workers not available
The ministry has also looked at the issues faced by gig and other informal workers. While the number of people involved in gig work is increasing in cities, sources say, there is no centralised or reliable data available on the number of people involved in such work.
According to government think tank NITI Aayog, 77 lakh workers were engaged in the gig economy in 2020-21 and the workforce is expected to “expand to 2.35 crore (23.5 million) workers by 2029-30”.
While the Centre launched the e-SHRAM portal, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MLE), in 2021 to enhance access to social security benefits for unorganised workers and platform-based gig workers, it is currently not mandatory for workers to register.
Sources say one of the key issues identified by the ministry regarding gig workers is the need for policy interventions to create a centralised and reliable database of workers. One of the key recommendations, sources say, is making it mandatory for platform aggregators to integrate their data of platform workers with the e-SHRAM portal.
Earlier this month, labour and employment minister Manshukh Mandaviya said in a statement that the government is working on a comprehensive strategy to provide social security to gig and platform workers.
He also said that platform aggregators will be asked to take the lead in registering their workers on the e-SHRAM portal. “An online window will be made available for aggregators to ensure a smooth and efficient registration process,” Mandaviya said, according to a statement released on 1 September.
Sector experts say that it should be made mandatory for aggregators to register platform workers working with them.
Sangam Tripathy, the National Adviser of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), told ThePrint, “It is a good move by the Centre. But if we want to help platform workers, then the aggregators should be made responsible for providing the data of workers. A few states such as Rajasthan have implemented the law for gig and platform workers. The biggest challenge is to get workers to register.”
The other issues identified by the ministry include limited access to affordable credit and financial services; the need to strengthen skill development; the absence of comprehensive social security measures; and poor grievance redressal mechanism, among others.
Mismatch in skill training provided and market demand
Sources in the central government say that skilling requires special attention. Though there are several central government schemes aimed at providing skill development and entrepreneurship training to informal sector workers, there is a need for skill gap analysis to ensure skill training is done in line with the demands of the market.
This was confirmed by the concept note on skilling seen by ThePrint. It listed the mismatch between skills provided by various institutions and actual requirements of the industry, lack of data on the type of training required, and lack of an effective mechanism to link informal workers with market opportunities, among issues that need to be resolved.
Arbind Singh, founder of the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), who attended the meeting on skilling last month, said, “The biggest issue is that there is no incentive for skilling. There is a need to change the way we provide skill training. We first need to provide adequate incentives to workers to come for skill training. Second, there is a need to identify a mechanism to provide training near their place of work in small groups.
He added, “The other big issue is that there is a massive gap in training provided and the market demand.”
To address these issues, MSME and MoHUA have recommended district-level skill gap analysis on a regular basis, utilisation of analytics to project future skill demand, partnerships between industry-academia for training, and focusing on targeted skill training by identifying vulnerable groups, among others.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
Also Read: Centre announces Rs 70,125 cr scheme to extend road network, connect 25,000 remote villages