Bihar Man Builds LinkedIn-like Platform For India’s Daily Wage Workers

If you go around your city, you’ll find a group of labourers standing in a huge group, shouting their voices hoarse in order to catch the attention of the contractors who’ve just come to hire a bunch of them.

This is the physical labour chowk system in our country, where some daily wage workers are hired for everyday tasks on a random basis, while many are left behind.

The main issue is that these workers are hand-to-mouth most of the time, and need daily employment for basic needs like food and water.

One Bihar man decided to change the face of this system and bring forth a more fair, just, and convenient system of hiring daily wage workers.

Chandrashekhar Mandal registered Digital Labour Chowk in October 2020 and finally launched it in the market in March 2023. 

The startup helps daily wage workers connect with employers and contractors who are looking to hire them for projects like construction work, painting, cleaning, etc.

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THE EARLY DAYS

Chandrashekhar Mandal hails from the small Ami Village in Darbhanga, Bihar. He grew up in a family that didn’t do very well financially. He often struggled for basic facilities but gave importance to education at all times.

However, Chandrashekhar had to drop out of the CA exam because of money issues.

Talking to Startup Pedia in an interview, he said, “Eventually, I did a Master’s in Commerce in 2019. Finally, I was able to secure a finance job in an NBFC. Life was going well and I thought I had made it. But one day, while I was working, I saw first-hand a physical labour chowk that had assembled in the heavy rain."

"Labourers were scrambling to get hired for the day, in search of food, water, and shelter. I knew that many of these people belonged to my state Bihar. I wanted to do something for them,” he added.

That is when Chandrashekhar Mandal wondered why there was no online platform for daily wage workers to bank on. He knew his idea had potential.

In September 2020, Mandal quit his job and decided to pursue Digital Labour Chowk full-time.

“I only had Rs 40,000 in my account. There was a full and final settlement of another Rs 40,000 pending. I assumed I had enough money to sustain myself.”

But Mandal’s living costs soared in Delhi within two months. He had to spend Rs 20,000 on just accommodation and food. He knew that if this continued, he would soon run out of fuel.

So he decided to shift to his village in Darbhanga. Here, his living costs were zero. And Chandrashekhar Mandal was ready to take on the world with just his laptop.

But…..another series of struggles awaited him in Bihar.

Chandrashekhar said, “In Bihar, I got to know about the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. I immediately applied but they responded by saying that they’ll fund only 75% of the loan amount, and the rest I would have to arrange myself. And I couldn’t. I even applied to the PM Employment Yojana but they rejected my application saying that mine was a private company."

"With each passing day, I grew more and more stressed. I remember I would keep staring at the ceiling fan in my room at night and wonder if quitting my job was the right decision," the founder mentioned.

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But Chandrashekhar Mandal was not one to give up. On the Internet, he came across a company that was running an incubation challenge for Rupees 10 lakhs.

He applied, got shortlisted, and just a few days later, he received a call from the company’s CEO and investment banker.

“They wanted me to join them in Pune where we would build on the idea of Digital Labour Chowk and make it into a service-based startup. From November 2021 to March 2022, I worked with them and gathered many valuable insights. And then things started moving in a positive direction,” Chandrashekhar adds.

In March, Digital Labour Chowk got a grant of Rupees 10 lakhs from the Citi Bank, another grant of Rupees 30 lakhs in May, and investor funding in September.

“I now had enough money to start working on the tech side of things. I came back to Delhi and finally launched Digital Labour Chowk in March 2023,” Chandrashekhar said.

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DIGITAL LABOUR CHOWK - A DIGNIFIED SYSTEM

Today, Digital Labour Chowk operates just as job portals like LinkedIn and Naukri.com.

A customer (contractor, employer) registers their company on the app, lists their job requirements, the wages offered, and posts the job listing. 

Every daily wage worker in the location gets notified about the job alert, and they're then able to seamlessly apply for it. Due care has been taken to make the apps very user-friendly because the target audience isn't extremely tech-savvy. 

We asked Chandrashekhar to explain the process of how a daily wage worker can enroll on the platform. 

He explained, “See, Digital Labour Chowk has two applications. One for the customer and the other for the workers and labourers. The customer simply posts a job alert, just like it's done on other job portals you may know. For the labourers, we've kept it additionally smooth. We use symbols and signs to make their user journey better. They download the app from the Playstore, get an OTP, choose a skill they're trained in, enter the wages they'd settle on, and that's it. They can then go to the home screen and find all the jobs that are filtered according to their specific requirements.”

GROWTH 

As of September 2024, Digital Labour Chowk has amassed over 1 lakh users and has 3000+ job postings on its application. 

“About 1000+ daily wage workers are hired every single day in Bihar, Noida, Delhi, etc,” Mandal confirmed. 

The startup onboarded a Japanese investor in 2023. 

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LOOKING AHEAD

In the future, Digital Labour Chowk plans to refine the platform and make it easier for people with more experience on their hands to get better jobs.

Chandrashekhar said, “Right now, a worker with 3 years of experience is making the same amount of money that someone with 10 years of experience is making. We want to change that and allow people to earn according to their experience. Their experience and knowledge must reward them fairly.”

Apart from that, the startup also has plans to connect labourers and workers with Government benefits and schemes like Labour Card,Pradhan Mantri Yojana, etc. 

Skill expansion and collaboration with Government-funded NGOs and private corporations are also in the line.