Social Security, Occupational Safety, Health Safeguards: Centre Proposes New Labour Policy
The government, through this new policy, will focus on single-window digital compliance with self-certification and simplified MSME returns.
The Ministry of Labour & Employment has proposed a National Labour and Employment Policy, Shram Shakti Niti 2025. The policy is aimed at providing universal social security to all workers and ensuring occupational safety and health.
The policy will also focus on empowering women and youth and enhance formalisation of the workforce to build a fair, inclusive and future-ready labour ecosystem in the country. The ministry will work as an employment facilitator and enable convergence among workers, training institutions and employers, enabling better convergence among all three.
According to the draft, the policy will be implemented in three phases. In addition, an inter-ministerial body named National Labour Employment Policy Implementation Council, chaired by the labour minister, will be put in place to track progress on goals and timelines that have been set for each of the three phases.
Among the key interventions in the policy are creation of Universal Social Security Account and integration of benefits under Employees' Provident Fund Organisation, Employees' State Insurance Corporation, Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, e-Shram, and State welfare board along with the convergence of National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and Skill India into a single skill-employment continuum.
Another important aspect of the new policy is to increase women's participation to 35% by 2030.
The government, through this new policy, will focus on single-window digital compliance with self-certification and simplified MSME returns. The centre will also promote green jobs and set up a unified national labour data architecture to ensure there is inter-ministerial coherence for transparent monitoring.
The ministry has asked for comments and feedback on the draft policy before it is to be finalised and sent to the Cabinet for approval.
The labour market in India is seeing a structural shift, which is driven by digitalisation and green transitions. The government hopes to respond through a unified framework integrating social protection, skilling, occupational safety, and technology-led governance, it said.
The first phase is expected to be completed by fiscal 2027 with the focus on institutional setup and social security integration. The second phase that will likely span across financial years 2027 and 2030 will be focused on nationwide rollout of Universal Social Security Account, district-level Employment Facilitation Cells and skill-credit system.
The third and final phase will undertake the consolidation of the related initiatives.
Through this initiative, the government plans to develop the National Career Service portal as India's Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment to serve as the technological backbone for inclusive job matching, credential verification and skill alignment.
