New Delhi, March 26 -- India has made significant strides in enhancing its social protection coverage through a comprehensive data-pooling exercise in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The initiative has utilised encrypted Aadhaar as a unique identifier across 34 major Central schemes such as MGNREGA, EPFO, ESIC, APY, and PM-POSHAN to process over 200 crore records to identify unique beneficiaries, the Ministry of Labour announced on Tuesday.

This exercise revealed that 92 crore people, comprising 65 per cent of India's population, are covered by at least one social protection benefit (cash and in-kind both), with 48.8 per cent receiving cash benefits. India's social protection coverage, thus, doubled from ...