The Maharashtra Government has awarded NYSE-listed, Accenture a three-year, management consulting and technology contract to help manage the administration of labor laws and create a management system to support services ranging from renewal of licenses to filing online grievances through an interactive portal.

The contract supports the Mahashramm initiative, designed to better manage and track services and payments through collaboration with banks for India's unorganized workforce of 20 million people, a company statement said here.

The program is unique in size and scale and has been cited by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as one of the leading best practices in the world.

Accenture will help implement a management framework and technology system to provide services, including registration and filing of applications, by building an online portal and creating a database to provide financial inclusion to unorganized workers using biometric signatures. This phase will be integrated with the Unique Identification Program (UID) of the Government of India, the release said.

Biometrics are unique physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, that can be used for automated recognition.

Biometrics is the basis of identification services because they are reliable, convenient and extremely difficult and expensive to forge.

"We look forward to helping improve the way India's people can access information and interact with their government. We are delighted to partner with the government on its journey toward making Maharashtra a high performing state," Krishna Giri, Managing Director, Accenture's Health & Public Service business in India, said.