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EPFO envisions achieving global standards in social security by 2047 through strategic initiatives, transitioning from enforcement to facilitation.

Digital India was launched in 2015 with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society. One of the many benefits of digitalisation is seen in the functioning as well as outreach of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Its member pool has increased from 117.8 million in 2014 to nearly 300 million in 2023, making these many people eligible for essential benefits such as retirement pension, insurance, and provident fund (PF). Of the 2014 strength, 18.5% were women; their share rose to 22.4% in 2023, as women members doubled from 9.24 million to 18.43 million. In 2014, the Universal Account Number (UAN) was allotted to each member for multiple accounts held. Hence, the number of members refers to the actual headcount rather than the number of PF accounts. There is a similar rise in the number of establishments covered under EPFO — from 0.8 million in 2014 to nearly 2.12 million in 2023. This reflects a strong effort by both employers and policymakers to extend the benefits of social security.

Among the many digital initiatives are the introduction of facilities enabling online deposits of contributions, simplified monthly e-challan-cum-return, single-point online registrations on the Shram Suvidha Portal, introduction of digital signatures and e-signs, and online portals for services such as registration, withdrawal, and pension claims, with the launch of online claim facility in 2017. These initiatives have streamlined processes and reduced paperwork and processing times significantly. This landmark year for EPFO digitalisation was followed by the launch of the e-nomination facility in 2019, and a revamped passbook facility in 2023. The EPFO’s mobile app has empowered members to access their accounts, check balances, and initiate transactions with ease, as against the old practice of sending a hard copy of the PF account statement at the end of the financial year.

Besides, digitisation has empowered pensioners through the introduction of digital life certificates and even embedded face authentication technology for Jeevan Praman Patra. The period after 2017 has also demonstrated exceptional efficiency in claims settlement. Now the members can file their claims through multiple modes — website, UMANG mobile app, or the EPFO public relations officer. The digital facilities have not just enabled “ease of living” but also transparency. With no pre-screening and minimal documents to be submitted, the number of claims settled has increased from 14 million in 2017-18 to 58 million in 2022-23. This works out to an astounding 190% growth as against a meagre 10% between 2014-15 and 2017-18. EPFO settles about two lakh claims on any given day. Not only the number of claims but also the settlement amount has risen sharply, from ₹ 41,000 crore to ₹ 1.67 lakh crore. Many of these claims are settled within 20 days, with some settled within 3-6 days as against the earlier 30-day time frame.

Since 2017, the multiple claim forms have been replaced by a single-page composite form, making services more efficient and transparent. This has also eliminated the role of the employer. Instead, members can now directly send forms and documents to EPFO. The aim is to empower members by allowing them greater control and direct access to EPF-related services and transactions.

Eliminating the role of the employer has also brought more transparency and prudent diligence in settlements, as the members are required to send duly filled forms along with KYC records directly to EPFO. They must only make sure that while filing the claims, the details match the EPFO records. Being an automatic system, even a slight mismatch can result in the rejection of the form. However, the system sends the reason for rejection so that the error is rectified.

EPFO envisions achieving global standards in social security by 2047 through strategic initiatives, including expanding coverage to 100 million within the next five years, transitioning from enforcement to facilitation for compliance, and a tech-ready workforce through EPF Karmayogi, among others.

Poonam Munjal is Professor and Palash Baruah is Associate Fellow, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). The views expressed are personal.

With environmental consciousness gaining ground, reducing carbon footprint in the sector will be vital to attract tourists.

The tourism sector is expected to play an integral role in Viksit Bharat preamble. The projections indicate that this sector is poised to generate employment for 137 million people and contribute an additional $250 billion to GDP by 2030. The sector is predicted to grow at an annual rate of 7.8 per cent by 2031 and its share in GDP is expected to rise to 7.2 per cent. Tourism-to-GDP ratio in India, at 6.8 per cent of GDP, puts it below most of the large emerging/developed economies. As faster growth of employment is must for achieving the goal of inclusive Viksit Bharat, tourism is one sector where India will need to focus in the coming years.

The discussion in the tourism policy circle rarely focuses on the carbon intensities of the tourism sector or ways to reduce it. A primary reason is that the tourism sector is not identified as a separate activity in the standard statistical accounts. As a result, information relating to tourism is buried in some other elements of the core accounts and not readily apparent.

What is available in the Indian context till now is tourism satellite account, which provides information on selected aspects of tourism sector. For instance, in the Indian satellite account, a foreign tourist visiting India on a foreign passport, staying at least 24 hours in the country is classified as one of the following categories: (i) leisure (recreation, holiday, health, study, religion and sport); (ii) business, family, mission, meeting. Whereas, a domestic tourist who travels within the country to a place other than his usual place of residence and stays at hotels or other accommodation establishments for a duration of not less than 24 hours or one night and for not more than 12 months at a time is classified into one of the following types : (i) business and trading; (ii) leisure and holiday; (iii) religious and pilgrimage; (iv) social purposes.

Contribution to GDP

From this tourism satellite account, one can estimate the sector’s contribution in GDP/employment of the various types of tourism activities. It also provides information on the type of commodities/services demanded by foreign/domestic tourists, etc. However, these accounts do not provide us with the carbon footprints of the tourism sector. If the government is keen to increase the share of tourism sector in the economy in the coming years, there is a need to quantify what it means in terms of carbon footprints and what policy interventions are needed to lower its growth.

Do we need to promote specific type of tourism activities to reduce carbon footprints? Does a higher growth of tourism sector impinge on India’s emission target, namely, net-zero by 2070? Of late, eco-tourism that focuses on minimising the negative impact of tourism and promoting environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and social responsibility is the buzz word to enable sustainable growth of the tourism sector. Given the worldwide focus on environmental conscious life style, the Indian tourism sector needs to focus on the same for attracting high valued tourism clientele.

This in turn imply that one needs to measure in detail the carbon footprint of our tourism sector. If any other country can provide credible evidence to show that tourism activities in the same produce lower carbon footprint, it is most likely that a high valued tourist will be more inclined to visit that country compared to India, unless the destination outweighs all other factors. Thus, a measure of carbon footprint is a must for the Indian tourism sector.

Worldwide, there is a trend now to construct an integrated modelling tool for analysing the carbon footprints of various types of tourism activities for inbound foreign or domestics tourism. The tool also provides inputs regarding the role of policy intervention for encouraging the sector to adopt a low carbon pathway. It is time India built such a tool for the tourism sector and moved beyond the static tourism satellite account.

The writer is Professor, NCAER. Views are personal.

Amartya Sen acknowledges progress in combating ‘son preference’ in Haryana and UP, while emphasizing the need for innovative employer financing solutions to bridge the skills gap and empower millions of youngsters in the workforce. The skill ecosystem should be aligned with employer supply chains through three reforms to NEP-enabled degree apprentices (DAs). These reforms would not only create new financing for ‘repair and prepare’ of millions of youngsters but also create structural connectivity between education, employability and employment.

Amartya Sen hasn’t been happy with India lately. But he’s surely smiling at the diminishing ‘son preference’ in Haryana and UP, which were significant contributors to the 100 million missing girls in Asia he insightfully flagged decades ago. But another missing 100 million youngsters outside India’s skill ecosystem arise from a market failure in financing.

The skill ecosystem should be aligned with employer supply chains through three reforms to NEP-enabled degree apprentices (DAs). These reforms would not only create new financing for ‘repair and prepare’ of millions of youngsters but also create structural connectivity between education, employability and employment.

There are three pressing problems in skills:

Connecting matching supply to demand.

Repair mismatch of supply for demand.

Prepare pipeline of supply for demand.

Market failure in financing skills straddles all three problems.

Employers are not willing to pay for training or candidates, but are willing to pay a premium for trained candidates.

Candidates are not ready to pay for training but willing to pay for a job.

Financiers are unwilling to finance skill development unless a job is guaranteed.

Skill providers are unable to fill up their classrooms because youngsters can’t pay.

This situation demands immediate action. The unwillingness of employers to manufacture their employees – finance skilling from their revenues – arises from three holes in the bucket:

They pay for training, and the candidate doesn’t get a job.

They pay for training, and the candidate gets a job but is not productive.

They pay for training, and the candidate gets a job and is productive, but leaves.

So, learning, productivity and attrition risks have made employer financing unviable. However, employers are piloting DA programs because of a demonstrable RoI from three sources: faster hiring time, lower attrition and higher productivity. Early data suggests employer degree apprenticeship programmes generate RoIs higher (more than 12%) than most corporate capex projects.

DAs meet policy and employer priorities. From a policy perspective, they solve matching (employers take potential employees for a test drive), repair (students learn firm-specific skills) and prepare (students get a broader education). From an employer perspective, they create scalability, replicability and generalisability by embracing five design principles:

Learning by doing Soft skills that drive wage premiums are not taught but ‘caught’.

Learning while earning Learning with qualification modularity (continuity between certificates, diplomas and degrees).

Learning with multi-modal delivery Online, onsite, on-campus and on-job and learning with signalling value (social and employability).

We currently have five sources of skill financing: GoI, state governments, philanthropy, lenders and parents. Creating a sixth pillar of employer financing requires three policy changes to the current DA framework.

Recognise tripartite contracts between universities, employers and youngsters, and legitimise an apprenticeship credit framework that recognises on-the-job training (degrees and employment are currently separate bilateral contracts).

Tech infrastructure for apprenticeship registration, workflows, reimbursements, etc. should be upgraded with modern user interfaces, uptime requirements and API frameworks.

Eliminate differences between the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (labour ministry) and the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (skills ministry) regarding reimbursement procedure/ amount/mode, trainee eligibility and study tenure.

Education and employability are moving from being ‘cousins’ to ‘siblings’ while employment is moving from being a fleeting acquaintance of both to a ‘cousin’. However, GoI’s organisational structure often ensures its leaders think vertically about horizontal problems. Parents with kids near the end of school often ask, ‘Is there one place they can go to get knowledge, skills and a job?’. They essentially articulate the multi-stakeholder demand for higher collaboration between employers, universities and skills.

We are all looking for something that is 1/3rd college, 1/3rd employment exchange and 1/3rd ITI. DAs synthesise this outcome.

Fifty years ago, Amartya Sen distinguished between accumulating human capital and expanding human capability. He suggested that ‘the former concentrates on the agency of human beings  through skill and knowledge as well as effort  in augmenting production possibilities. The latter focuses on the ability of human beings to lead lives they have reason to value and enhance their substantive choices. The two perspectives cannot but be related.’

Just like adults who get more than income from their jobs, DA programmes give our youngsters more than skills and degrees. They create new financing for the missing 100 million youngsters by embedding skilling into employer people supply chains. DAs are a buy-one-get-one-free deal – human capital and capability – that policymakers must grab.

The Ministry of Fisheries signed an MoU with e-commerce company Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), on February 19, 2024, to bring fishermen and consumers in one marketing platform to sell varieties of fish. Though belated, the move is required for developing the fishery sector in India.

The NCAER, in a recently published report, noted glaring deficiencies in digital penetration in the fishery sector. It was noted through the primary survey (conducted in 2022) that only around 12 per cent of fishermen reported that their selling activities are connected to the Web-based FMPIS (Fish Market and Price Information System). Lack of access to FMPIS could have adverse implications in terms of reduced transparency, efficiency and profitability.

Web-based platform

FMPIS is a web-based platform that provides real-time fish prices, availability and other market data to stakeholders. This can reduce the information asymmetry that exists between different market actors. In a way, digital penetration helps to ensure consumers’ access to inexpensive, high-quality fish.

The Interim Budget for 2024-25 allocated over ₹2.5 billion for the Department of Fisheries and rightly emphasised the creation of digital public infrastructure for assisting fishermen. Both inland and aquaculture production and exports of marine fishery has doubled over the last decade. The flagship Pradhan Mantri Mastya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) is being stepped up to enhance aquaculture productivity from the existing 3 tonnes to 5 tonnes per hectare, doubling exports to ₹1 trillion and generating around 5.5 million employment opportunities.

All these will serve to nurture the Blue Economy 2.0 to focus on promoting adaptation and restoration, along with climate-resilient activities for developing integrated and multi-sectoral aquaculture. The integration of technology through the marketing value chain could play a key role in making avialable varieties of fish in the consumption space. E-commerce platforms and online marketplaces could connect fish farmers directly to buyers. In this respect, the fishery sector could harness the vast potential of AI applications to reduce wastage by identifying areas of demand and increase efficiency by providing competitive options to consumers looking for sources of protein. However, the challenges in providing inexpensive and dependable technology to small and mid-size fishermen are daunting and require substantive intervention in the form of investment, training and awareness in an enabling atmosphere with the cooperation of the government, research entities and private organisations.

Fish and fishery products, whether for domestic consumption or for export, move in the marketing chain through different channels. The length of the marketing channel depends on the size of the market, the nature of the commodity and the pattern of demand at the consumer level.

The marketing channel for marine fish has the auctioneer, commission agent, wholesaler and retailer as intermediaries. The fishermen sell their catch through the auctioneer, usually at the landing centre, without any value addition. The auctioneer conducts the auction and sells the fish to the local dealers/fish collectors, who auction it off to the wholesalers. The wholesalers in turn sell their fish to the retailer after re-icing, salting, cleaning, size grading, etc. Retailers carry out further value addition before selling to the consumers. For export, the marketing channel for fish involves the trader or agent and the fish processing unit.

The NCAER study suggests that FMPIS in fishery could improve transparency, efficiency, and competitiveness, leading to lower costs and lower prices for producers and consumers. Real-time market data can help fisherfolk make informed decisions, reduce vulnerability to exploitation, and facilitate policy-making for sustainable, efficient, and transparent markets. The report predicts a 22-million-tonne market by 2026-27.

Saurabh Bandyopadhyay is Senior Fellow and Laxmi Joshi is Fellow at NCAER. Views are personal.