In line with the vision for a Viksit Bharat@2047 – driven by women led development wherein 70% of women engaged in economic activities, laid out in the Union Budget 2025-26, a Roundtable Discussion on providing social security and care support to women was held today in New Delhi under the chairpersonship of Ms. Sumita Dawra, Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment. Organised in collaboration with UNICEF, the meeting was attended by senior officials from Ministry of Labour & Employment, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, and representatives from international organizations (UNICEF, UNDP, ILO, World Bank) and academia (VVGNLI, IEG).

Today’s roundtable aimed at fostering dialogue on reimagining social security coverage and care support for women in the unorganized sector, while leveraging the Social Security Code and eShram – One-Stop-Solution, facilitate knowledge exchange and develop a strategic action plan to promote female labour force participation in the country.

Global best practices on successful outcomes of family friendly policies to increase opportunities and decrease pressure on women, taking a systems approach and building synergies, flexible working arrangements, addressing gender gaps and biases in existing social protection schemes, policies and programmes, were showcased. Integration of benefits offered by different Central and State Government departments was also highlighted as an important way forward. The contribution of eShram in facilitating the integration of various social welfare schemes and programmes, along with various other portals like the National Career Service portal, which facilitates job demand and supply matching and SIDH for skill development programmes, are ensuring seamless delivery through a one-stop-solution, and supporting employment generation and skill development. Evidence from global best practices showcased during the meeting suggests that such integrated efforts yield high impact.

Ms. Sumita Dawra, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment during her special address highlighted that the Aadhar-seed Unique Account Number given to workers registered on eShram enables track and trace of the saturation of social welfare schemes among the beneficiaries. She urged international organizations working at State level to become partners in achieving comprehensive last mile delivery through eShram. Alluding to the Union Budget 2025-26, she emphasized that its thematic priorities focus on promoting employment led-growth across MSMEs, manufacturing sector and labour intensive sectors like footwear, leather and toy industry. She mentioned that today’s discussion will be focused on developing a strategy to promote employment generation and greater participation of women in labour force, in line with the big push given to sectoral growth in the Union Budget.

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Himanshu Pathak

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