Govt Releases Draft National Labour & Employment Policy ‘Shram Shakti Niti 2025’ for Public Feedback

The Shram Shakti Niti 2025 envisions a resilient, digitally empowered, and continuously skilled workforce capable of adapting to technological, environmental, and demographic shifts.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), Government of India, has unveiled the draft National Labour & Employment Policy — Shram Shakti Niti 2025 for public consultation, marking a major step toward reshaping India’s labour and employment landscape for the Viksit Bharat @2047 vision.

The draft policy presents a comprehensive framework to create a fair, inclusive, and future-ready world of work, grounded in India’s civilisational ethos of śrama dharma — the moral value and dignity of labour. It aims to strike a balance between workers’ welfare and enterprise growth, ensuring that every worker has access to protection, productivity, and participation in the evolving economy.

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A New Vision for India’s Workforce

The Shram Shakti Niti 2025 envisions a resilient, digitally empowered, and continuously skilled workforce capable of adapting to technological, environmental, and demographic shifts. It positions the Ministry of Labour & Employment not merely as a regulator, but as a proactive Employment Facilitator, fostering coordination among workers, employers, training institutions, and digital platforms.

At its core, the policy seeks to modernise the labour ecosystem through convergence, innovation, and inclusivity. It identifies key priorities, including universal social security, occupational safety and health (OSH), women and youth empowerment, and green and technology-enabled employment generation.

“Shram Shakti Niti 2025 is not only a policy document but a blueprint for India’s labour transformation — empowering workers, strengthening enterprises, and ensuring equitable growth in the journey toward Viksit Bharat,” said a senior official from the Ministry.

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National Career Service: India’s Digital Public Infrastructure for Employment

One of the most transformative aspects of the policy is the elevation of the National Career Service (NCS) into India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Employment. This integrated platform will enable transparent, AI-powered job matching, credential verification, and skills mapping through open APIs, ensuring that opportunities reach every corner of the country — from Tier-II and Tier-III cities to rural districts and MSME clusters.

The NCS-DPI will serve as a nationwide connector of talent and opportunity, with features such as:

• Multilingual accessibility for diverse regional users.

• AI-driven analytics for skill demand forecasting and real-time labour market intelligence.

• Integration with academic and training institutions for skill-based matchmaking.

• Open architecture to allow private platforms and employers to plug in seamlessly.

By leveraging the NCS as a national employment backbone, the policy aims to institutionalise employment facilitation as a public good, ensuring that the benefits of economic growth translate into real opportunities for India’s 500+ million-strong workforce.

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Universal Social Security and Integrated Labour Stack

The draft policy emphasises universal and portable social security for all workers, including those in informal and gig sectors. It envisions a unified “Labour Stack”, integrating key databases such as the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), e-Shram, and NCS into an interoperable digital ecosystem.

This interconnected architecture will allow for seamless data exchange, benefit portability, and lifecycle-based welfare delivery, ensuring that workers enjoy continuous social protection — regardless of location, employment status, or sector.

The e-Shram Portal, already connected to more than 31 crore unorganised workers, will serve as a foundation for the expansion of this system, helping ensure that no worker is left behind in India’s march toward formalisation and inclusion.

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Skilling for the Future: Green and Tech-Enabled Jobs

Recognising the rapid transformations in the global economy, Shram Shakti Niti 2025 focuses on preparing India’s workforce for emerging sectors, including green energy, climate adaptation, AI, robotics, digital services, and global supply chains.

The policy promotes the concept of a continuously skilled and lifelong-learning workforce, encouraging collaboration between the Skill India Mission, industry associations, and educational institutions. It also seeks to integrate vocational education with mainstream education, providing flexibility for workers to move across learning and employment pathways.

The document highlights that future-ready jobs must also be sustainable, aligning with India’s net-zero goals and global climate commitments.

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Women, Youth, and Inclusive Growth at the Centre

The policy gives strong emphasis to women’s participation in the workforce, advocating for reforms in workplace safety, flexible work arrangements, and equal pay standards. It also calls for enhanced maternity benefits, childcare support, and incentives for female entrepreneurship.

For youth, the focus is on career counselling, apprenticeships, digital skills, and job-readiness programmes through the NCS-DPI and affiliated institutions. The policy envisions a generation of empowered, innovative, and adaptable workers who can thrive in the global economy.

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Evidence-Based Policymaking and Cooperative Federalism

The Shram Shakti Niti 2025 reflects extensive stakeholder consultations with state governments, industry bodies, trade unions, civil society organisations, and research institutions. It promotes cooperative federalism by encouraging Centre–State alignment in labour governance and policy implementation.

The document also outlines a shift toward evidence-based policymaking, using real-time data and analytics from digital systems such as NCS, e-Shram, and EPFO to monitor employment trends, assess programme outcomes, and design targeted interventions.

Transparency, accountability, and inclusivity form the cornerstones of the policy’s governance approach, supported by digital dashboards and performance monitoring frameworks.

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Public Consultation and Next Steps

The Ministry has invited stakeholders, experts, institutions, and citizens to review the draft and submit their feedback by 27th October 2025. Suggestions can be sent via email to ddg-dget[at]nic[dot]in.

The draft document is available on the official websites of:

• Ministry of Labour & Employment (labour.gov.in)

• Directorate General of Employment (DGE)

• National Career Service (NCS)

The full draft can also be accessed directly through the link: https://labour.gov.in/sites/default/files/draft_-mole_le_policy-_v1.0.pdf

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Towards a Viksit Bharat: Empowering Every Worker

As India moves toward its centenary of independence in 2047, the Shram Shakti Niti 2025 provides a long-term roadmap for transforming the world of work. By combining traditional values of labour dignity with modern innovation, technology, and inclusion, the policy seeks to build a nation where every worker is protected, every enterprise is empowered, and every citizen has an opportunity to prosper.

“India’s journey toward a Viksit Bharat will be defined by how we value and empower our workers. Shram Shakti Niti 2025 is a step in that direction — uniting welfare, technology, and productivity to create a future-ready labour ecosystem,” the Ministry stated.