Mumbai teen registers 750+ domestic workers for e-Shram benefits

Mumbai: A loan request at his front door changed everything for 17-year-old Ayaan Wadhwa. The woman who worked at his home needed money for her mother’s treatment but had no savings or insurance. That made Ayaan ask: do domestic workers have any safety net at all?

His research led him to the government’s e-Shram portal, a welfare scheme for unorganised workers that offers ID, accident insurance, housing grants and pension. But the woman who worked with his family for years had never heard of it.

In 2025, Ayaan created a Hindi and Marathi booklet explaining the schemes and began holding workshops in Mumbai housing societies. At his first camp, 80-90 workers showed up. He helped them register one by one on the portal. Since early 2026, he has conducted 5 workshops and helped register more than 750 workers. For many, it was their first formal link to government benefits.

The initiative has now expanded to tribal areas in Maharashtra through NGO Saanvi Social Welfare. A workshop at a government Ashramshala drew over 100 students and mothers. Students are also being trained to help their parents register at home.

Ayaan says the e-Shram card is only a start. Because homes are not recognised as formal workplaces under Indian law, domestic workers still lack contracts, minimum wages and grievance systems. He is now building an AI WhatsApp chatbot where workers can record job terms in Hindi, Marathi or English and get a bilingual contract. His project, Workers of India, was recently selected for the IB Global Youth Action Fund from over 1,100 global entries and received a grant of about Rs 1.6 lakh.

His target is to register 2,000 workers by the end of 2026 and push for legal recognition of domestic work.