The Labor Ministry of India has planned to issue smart card for daily wages workers for some formalized sectors of the industries. These smart cards will help the labors avail maximum benefits that fall under myriad of social security schemes like the health insurance, provident fund and pension.

These smartcard for laborers will seed the details of employees like their bank account numbers including the IFSC code, PAN Card Number, Aadhaar Card Number and UAN so that it benefits the holder. The Ministry of Labor has worked on one scheme which aims to provide one smart card for daily wages workers to the workers of organized sector. This card will also be used for verifying details of dependents, bank account, address, age and identity. The ministry also said that these cards would be issued only after all UANs have been issued by Employees’ Provident Fund Organization. Infact this scheme will come into picture once EPFO gets their data stabilized and in operation.

To speak of current statistics, the EPFO has issued 4 crore UANs to its list of subscribers. It has even starting updating its database with these portable Provident Fund Account Numbers. To activate your UAN number, one needs to be a EPFO subscriber so that he can log in at the portal once the Know Your Customer details are verified.

Also right now the EPFO doesn’t provide any passbook to its subscribers however the subscribers can log on and take print of their PF statement. Issuing smartcard for laborers will help these laborers avail benefits of health insurance. Infact ministry might store different other data for its subscribers on one single chip so that it can extend different benefits like deposit linked insurance, PF and pension. The ministry says that it would take minimum one year to get one new smart card as reality since all is dependent on the maintenance of UAN database.