Hyderabad: Telangana is one of the 10 states that the Department of Labor and Employment initiates Phase I of the Data Collection Exercise.
The data summary exercise will not only enhance India’s global reputation as a pioneer in social protection, but also promote central government, state and UTS to optimize welfare spending and get closer to sustainable social protection financing. This will help states identify unique beneficiaries under state-specific social protection programs, the ministry said.
The exercise, which began a few days ago at a hybrid conference, will also strengthen India’s position on negotiating trade and social security agreements with other countries and reflect India’s commitment to promoting decent work at global value chains.
In addition to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Karnataka and Gujarat were all selected to carry out the drill.
The ministry is actively working with the state government and the International Labor Organization (ILO) to conduct a national social protection data collection exercise to obtain the overall picture of the scope of social protection in India.
The ministry said the labor departments of the states played a nose role in compiling data for their respective specific country and shared the same compilation with the central government for further merge, verification and deletion.
According to the ministry, India has strengthened its social protection scope by working with ILO through comprehensive data practice. More than 2 million records have been processed to identify unique beneficiaries by leveraging encrypted Aadhaar as a unique identifier for 34 major central schemes including MGNREGA, EPFO, ESIC, APY and PM-POSHAN.
The exercise shows that 65% of India’s population (920 million) receives at least one social protection benefit (cash and physical) with 48.8% receiving cash benefits. Therefore, according to ILO’s World Social Protection Report (WSPR) 2024-26, the coverage of social protection in India increased from 24.4% in 2021 to 48.8% in 2024, and by acknowledging existing central social protection programmes, these plans have not been considered in advance.
India’s current assessment of the scope of social protection in ILO IE, 48.8% remain underestimated because it does not take into account the in-kind benefits provided by state-managed national citizens to citizens of the country, such as state-managed welfare and social protection programs. Considering these data, it is expected that the actual scope of social protection in India will be higher.
