The State Bank Of India’s ‘Ecowrap’ report 2021 states that, “currently informal economy is possibly is at max 15%-20% of formal GDP”. It has cited the formalization efforts of the government in terms of EPFO (Employee Provident Fund Organization) payroll and registrations on the e-Shram portal for unorganized workers.

Launched in August this year, the e-shram portal has registered 5.3 crore unorganised workers until now, says the report.

Based on the number of establishments remitting first ECR (Electronic Challan cum Return) in the month, SBI has said that “36.6 lakh jobs have been formalised till Aug’21”.

However, the number of establishments in this category has gone down from 60,884 in 2018 to 46,656 at the end of 2020-21, showing a steady decline from 2018-19 onwards. Whereas the net number of new subscribers to the EPF scheme went up over three years between 2017-18 to 2020-21 from 15,52,940 to 77,08,375, 2020’s figure was a yearly decline of 1.5 lakh from 78,58,394 new subscribers in 2019.

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