India, March 25 -- The Government of India issued the following news release:
India has made significant strides in enhancing its social protection coverage through a comprehensive data-pooling exercise led by the Ministry in collaboration with ILO. By utilizing encrypted Aadhaar as a unique identifier across 34 major Central schemes such as MGNREGA, EPFO, ESIC, APY, and PM-POSHAN, over 200 crore records were processed to identify unique beneficiaries.
This exercise revealed that 65% of India's population (92 crore people) is covered by at least one social protection benefit (cash and in-kind both), with 48.8% receiving cash benefits. India's social protection coverage, thus, doubled from 24.4% in 2021 to 48.8% in 2024 as per ILO's World ...