[Answered] Examine how the proposed Shram Shakti Niti 2025 exposes gaps in India’s labour landscape. Critically analyze its failure to address the plight of exploited workers.

Introduction

India has 11 million people in modern slavery (Global Slavery Index 2023) and nearly 90% workforce informal (ILO 2024). Amid rising exploitation, the proposed Shram Shakti Niti 2025 promises reforms but reveals deep systemic gaps.

Labour Landscape: Informalization, Precarity, and Structural Exploitation

1. Field studies and media investigations show widespread wage theft, absence of contracts, forced labour and denial of EPF/ESI benefits. Example: Women in seafood export units were downgraded from registered workers to “daily wagers” to deny provident fund benefits.
2. Despite constitutional guarantees under Articles 14, 21, 23 and 42, India’s labour market is characterised by:

Shram Shakti Niti 2025: What It Aims to Do

The draft policy claims to be “rights-driven and future-ready”. The policy invokes Directive Principles: Art. 41 (right to work), Art. 42 (humane work conditions), Art. 43 (living wage).

Promised Measures:

1. Universal Social Security Account integrating EPFO, ESIC, PM-JAY, e-SHRAM.
2. Use of AI-driven National Career Service (NCS) for job matching.
3. Targets 35% female labour force participation by 2030.
4. Enforces safety under Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.

How the Policy Exposes Gaps and Contradictions

1. Social security without funding: No mandate for employer contributions. Risk of becoming another e-SHRAM: registered 28 crore workers, but benefit delivery remains negligible. Outcome will be digital registration without material protection.
2. Digital optimism → digital exclusion: 38% households have functional digital literacy (NFHS-5). Women, older workers, and migrants are excluded. Constitutional implication such as it violates Article 15: non-discrimination.
3. Weak enforcement = empty promises: Inspector vacancies and absence of penalties make the “near-zero fatality by 2047” target aspirational. Example: In construction and mining belts, workers die without compensation due to lack of monitoring under the OSH Code, 2020.
4. Gig and platform workers: flexibility masking exploitation: No recognition of minimum wages under the Code on Wages, 2019. Platform companies evade accountability—”algorithmic management” replaces humane management. Case study: Rajasthan’s Gig Workers Act (2023) provides welfare fund; Centre’s policy lacks such provisions.
5. Workers Lose Dignity and Bargaining Power: Union weakening, absence of collective bargaining → loss of voice. Moves MoLE towards being an “employment facilitator”, not rights protector. ILO Convention 29 on forced labour remains breached.

Conclusion

As Amartya Sen notes in Development as Freedom, growth without dignity is injustice. Shram Shakti Niti’s success depends not on digital dashboards but on funding, enforcement and worker rights.