Labour Ministry Releases Draft ‘Shram Shakti Niti 2025’ for Public Consultation
SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth | SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
Institutions: Ministry of Labour & Employment | Directorate General of Employment
The Ministry of Labour & Employment (MoLE) has invited public feedback on the draft National Labour & Employment Policy – Shram Shakti Niti 2025, envisioning a fair, inclusive, and future-ready world of work aligned with Viksit Bharat @ 2047. Grounded in the ethos of śrama dharma – the dignity and moral value of labour – the policy seeks to balance worker protection, enterprise productivity, and labour-market participation.
The draft re-positions MoLE as an Employment Facilitator, driving convergence between workers, employers, and training institutions through a technology-enabled National Career Service (NCS) platform. Conceived as India’s Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment (DPI-E), the NCS will use open APIs, AI-driven job matching, credential verification, and multilingual access to connect opportunity with talent, particularly across Tier-II/Tier-III cities, rural districts, and MSME clusters.
The policy proposes a unified Labour Stack, integrating databases such as EPFO, ESIC, e-Shram, and NCS to build an interoperable digital ecosystem supporting lifelong learning, social protection, and income security. It emphasises universal social security, occupational safety and health, gender and youth empowerment, and the promotion of green and technology-enabled jobs to prepare India’s workforce for emerging technologies and climate transitions.
Through cooperative federalism and evidence-based policymaking, Shram Shakti Niti 2025 aims to transform India’s labour administration from compliance-driven regulation to data-driven, participatory governance, ensuring that the benefits of growth are broad-based and equitable. Public comments are open until 27 October 2025.
The draft policy connects India’s labour reforms with the digital-governance agenda, anchoring employment generation within a unified, interoperable, and rights-based labour ecosystem. It signals a paradigm shift toward lifecycle employment services integrating welfare, skills, and productivity under one national digital stack.
What Are EPFO, ESIC, e-Shram, and NCS — and How Do They Form India’s Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment (DPI-E)? →
Together, these four systems represent India’s emerging Labour Stack — a connected set of digital platforms that will power the Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment (DPI-E) proposed in Shram Shakti Niti 2025:
EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation): Provides social-security savings for organised-sector workers and now increasingly covers platform and gig workers through digital onboarding.
ESIC (Employees’ State Insurance Corporation): Delivers contributory health insurance and medical benefits for employees in formal establishments.
e-Shram Portal: A national database of unorganised-sector workers, assigning each a unique Universal Account Number (UAN) to enable social-security portability across jobs and states.
NCS (National Career Service): A job-matching and career-counselling portal connecting employers and job-seekers. Under the new policy, it evolves into a Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment (DPI-E) — integrating verified credentials, multilingual access, and AI-driven job matching.
Once integrated, these systems will create an interoperable, worker-centred ecosystem linking identification, social protection, skills, and employment services — enabling lifelong learning, income security, and transparent labour-market participation.
Follow the full release here: PIB – Draft National Labour & Employment Policy – Shram Shakti Niti 2025 | Draft Policy PDF