Forgecore®
Workforce Platform
Engineered by VB Group · 10+ years of Indian industrial expertise

Where the plant floor
meets compliance.

Forgecore is the cloud workforce platform for Indian manufacturers running 1,000–10,000+ contract workers. Verify every worker. Log every shift. Generate every Form-21, CLRA, BOCW and DPDP register automatically. Survive every audit.

DPDP & Aadhaar compliant
ISO 27001:2022 ready
≥99.5% uptime SLA
Hash-chained audit · 7-yr retention
<4 hr
Worker onboarding TAT
99%+
DPDP consent capture
95%+
Aadhaar verification success
10
User roles, one platform
3 yr
Audit retention default
No sign-up · No download · One click
See Forgecore live in your browser — switch between Plant Head, Compliance Head, HR Head, Inspector and Worker views.
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Engineered for India · DPDP Act 2023 · Aadhaar Act 2016 · CLRA 1970 · Factories Act 1948 · BOCW 1996 · IT Act 2000 · CERT-In 2022

The plant floor reality

If your contract workforce lives in spreadsheets, your next audit is a coin flip.

Most Indian manufacturers run mission-critical contract labour through paper registers, three different HRMS modules, and the Compliance Head's WhatsApp group. None of these were designed for DPDP, Aadhaar, or a Labour Inspector arriving unannounced.

Pain point #1

Onboarding takes 2-3 days.

Contractor sends names. Plant HR types them in. Aadhaar copies stack up. Hospital chases fitness. Worker waits at the gate, unbilled. Margins leak.

Pain point #2

Form-21 is rebuilt every month.

Compliance team manually compiles registers from attendance ledgers, contractor invoices, fitness certificates. Inspector arrives → 48 hours of panic → "we'll get back to you."

Pain point #3

DPDP enforcement is here.

If a worker exercises their data rights tomorrow, can you pull every consent timestamp, every data access event, every retention decision? Most plants can't. Penalties: up to ₹250 crore.

The industrial reality

The cost of doing nothing is louder than ever.

The Indian compliance landscape changed in 2023. Then again in 2024. The platforms most plants run on haven't.

76%

of Indian manufacturers have faced at least one labour compliance penalty in the past 24 months.

1,840 hr

average annual time a single plant burns on manual compliance reporting and register reconciliation.

₹250 Cr

maximum penalty per breach under the DPDP Act 2023 — and enforcement has begun.

6.4 hr

average labour inspector visit · 4.8 of which is spent searching for paper records that don't reconcile.

Did you know

Only 23% of Indian factories generate Form-21 digitally today. The rest still rebuild it manually every month.

Did you know

84% of plant heads cite "contract workforce visibility" as their #1 operational concern — yet most run it through paper and WhatsApp.

Did you know

Aadhaar verification fails for 1 in 14 workers on first attempt. Without automated retry, those workers wait at the gate, unbilled.

One platform · Twelve workstreams

Every worker verified. Every shift logged. Every register audit-ready.

Forgecore covers the complete contractor workforce lifecycle inside an Indian plant — from contractor handoff to gate exit, from onboarding to audit pack.

Worker Onboarding

Aadhaar/PAN KYC, biometric enrolment, hospital fitness clearance, ID print — under 4 hours, end to end. DPDP consent captured in the worker's preferred language.

Compliance Engine

Auto-generated Form-21 (CLRA Rule 78), CLRA, BOCW, EPF, ESI registers. DPDP consent log, subject rights console, hash-chained, regulator-export ready.

Gate Operations

Biometric attendance, exception handling, visitor & vendor passes, emergency roll-call. Offline-tolerant — runs through monsoon and patchy gate Wi-Fi.

Safety Module

Induction tracker, Permit-to-Work (hot work, confined space, electrical), incident & near-miss log, refresher training, leading-indicator scoring.

Health Module

Hospital SPOC workflow, fitness checkup booking, Form-21 health, certifying surgeon registry, fitness expiry alerts, reimbursements.

Finance Module

Contractor invoicing with GST/TDS calc, settlement aging, Razorpay-integrated payments, reconciliation. Bring your CFO closer to the plant floor.

Analytics & Plant Health

Role-based dashboards, SLA heatmaps, 12-month trends, annual audit pack auto-generated. Plant Health Index — a single 0-100 number for your CFO.

Worker Self-Service

Responsive web portal in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi. Workers see attendance, payslips, training, fitness — on any phone browser. No app install.

Inspector Mode

Read-only regulator portal. Labour Inspector logs in directly, sees the full audit pack, drills into any worker's evidence chain. No PDF exports. Trust, audited.

Multi-Plant Holding View

Group-CFO dashboard across plants. Comparative compliance, settlement aging, workforce risk. Run 3, 30 or 100 plants from one screen.

Hash-Chained Audit Log

Every record's edit history is cryptographically chained. Tamper-proof. 7-year retention. The evidence trail enterprise buyers actually pay for.

Platform Services

Multi-tenant from row one. RBAC across 10 roles. MFA, SSO/SAML for enterprise tier. AWS Mumbai region. ISO 27001:2022 controls implemented.

Built by operators, not by tech-park outsiders

Born on the plant floor. Forged across a decade of Indian industrial reality.

Forgecore is engineered by Vijaya Bhanu Engineering India Pvt Ltd — VB Group. Ten-plus years of operating Indian plants. Ten-plus years of standing at gates in monsoon. Ten-plus years of explaining Form-21 to inspectors at 9 PM. Ten-plus years of feeling every register that didn't reconcile.

We built Forgecore because the platforms we needed didn't exist. SAP didn't fit. Beeline didn't speak India. greytHR didn't see contract workers. So VB Group built what plants like ours actually need — and we're now opening it up to every Indian manufacturer running on contract labour.

10+
Years operating Indian plants
VB Group
Vijaya Bhanu Engineering Pvt Ltd
India-First
Aadhaar · DPDP · CLRA · BOCW
The founder's commitment

"Every line of Forgecore was tested first inside our own plants. We've been on the receiving end of every audit, every inspection, every penalty notice. The platform you see is the one we wished we had ten years ago."

— VB Group, Founder Office
Why this matters

When the engineer who built it has also stood at the gate at 6 AM in monsoon, the product is different.

1
Plant-floor reality, not Silicon Valley abstractions. Forgecore handles biometric reader failures in monsoon, low-literacy onboarding, contractor cabin chaos — because we lived through them.
2
Compliance is the product, not a feature. Form-21, CLRA, BOCW, DPDP — engineered into the foundation, not bolted on after a buyer complaint.
3
A decade of operator scars. Every screen, every workflow, every audit chain — designed by people who've explained discrepancies to a Labour Commissioner.
4
VB Group skin in the game. Forgecore runs first on our own plants. Every customer benefits from the same battle-tested production environment.
How it works

From contractor handoff to gate-ready, in under four hours.

Every contract worker passes through one consistent workflow. Every step is audit-trailed.

  1. 01

    Contractor uploads

    Vendor SPOC submits worker via portal. Aadhaar masked, PAN, basic KYC.

  2. 02

    Aadhaar + biometric

    UIDAI verification. 10-print biometric capture. DPDP consent in worker's language.

  3. 03

    Hospital fitness

    Empanelled hospital books slot, certifies fitness, writes back to platform.

  4. 04

    Safety induction

    Site Induction Training, PPE issue, role-specific safety modules.

  5. 05

    ID printed · gate cleared

    Forgecore-branded ID at the kiosk. Worker walks in. Every shift now logged.

The differentiator

The audit pack is built every minute. Not the night before the inspector arrives.

Forgecore's Compliance Engine assembles Form-21, CLRA, BOCW and DPDP registers in real time. When the Labour Inspector logs in to your plant, the trail is already there. Hash-chained, signed, retained.

87/100
Plant Health Index
A single number. Your CFO's morning briefing.
Built for the people who run the plant

Ten roles. One platform. Each role sees what they need — nothing they don't.

Plant Head / CFO

Plant Health Index

A single 0-100 number with the top 3 risks. ₹4.2 cr penalties avoided in pilot year.

Compliance Head

Form-21 in 90 seconds

CLRA Rule 78 schema, hash-chained, signed, ready for the Inspector — not after.

HR Head

3-day onboarding → 4 hours

From contractor handoff to ID-printed and gate-ready, in a single shift.

Safety Officer

Permit-to-Work in 30 sec

Hot work, confined space, electrical. Active permits visible on the gate kiosk.

Hospital SPOC

Fitness in one workflow

Booking → checkup → certificate write-back → Form-21 link. Zero paper.

Contractor / Vendor

Submit, track, settle

Worker submission, approval status, invoice settlement aging — all in one panel.

Worker

Hindi self-service

हाजिरी · वेतन · प्रशिक्षण — on any phone browser. Dignity by design.

Inspector / Auditor

Audit-ready, on demand

Read-only regulator login. Drill into any worker's evidence chain instantly.

Compliance

India-first. Every regulation mapped to a control.

Forgecore doesn't ask you to interpret the law. The platform encodes it.

DPDP 2023

Consent · subject rights · breach notify

Aadhaar Act 2016

AUA/KUA · masked · audit chain

CLRA 1970

Form-21 · Form-22 · Form-23 · Rule 78

Factories Act 1948

§41 fitness · §62 register · §66 hours

BOCW 1996

Cess · registration · returns

EPF / ESI

UAN linkage · ECR · IP number

CERT-In Apr 2022

6-hr incident report · 180-day logs

ISO 27001:2022

93 controls · annual audit

Comparison

Forgecore vs. global VMS vs. Indian HRIS.

Built India-first means built India-first. Not retrofitted.

Capability Forgecore SAP Fieldglass / Beeline greytHR / Keka / Darwinbox
Aadhaar (UIDAI AUA/KUA) verification✓ Native— Custom build~ Some via partners
Form-21 auto-generation (CLRA Rule 78)✓ Built-in— Manual / custom— Not designed for contract labour
BOCW cess returns✓ Built-in
DPDP consent capture & subject rights✓ Native, vernacular~ GDPR-aligned, India patches~ Basic
Biometric gate ops with offline tolerance✓ Built-in— Third-party~ Add-on
Inspector Mode (regulator read-only)✓ Native
Worker self-service in 5 Indian languages✓ Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi— English-first~ Hindi/English
Hash-chained tamper-proof audit log✓ Cryptographic~ Standard logs~ Standard logs
Multi-plant holding-company view✓ Native✓ Available~ Limited
Built for 10 plant user roles✓ Designed for India plant~ Generic VMS roles— HRIS roles only
Data residency: AWS Mumbai (ap-south-1)✓ Default~ Optional✓ Default
ROI Calculator

What Forgecore saves you in year one.

Move the sliders. Watch the savings.

Estimated annual saving
₹0
Conservative estimate · plant-specific quote on demo
Onboarding time saved₹0
Compliance penalty avoidance₹0
Audit-prep hours reclaimed₹0
Productivity uplift₹0
Get my plant-specific quote →
What changes inside your plant

From the next shift onwards. Measured. Visible. Audit-trailed.

Forgecore doesn't promise transformation in three years. It changes how your gate runs on Monday.

Before Forgecore
2-3 days

to onboard a new contract worker. Manual KYC. Paper fitness. Phone calls to print ID.

With Forgecore
<4 hours

Aadhaar → biometric → fitness → ID at kiosk. End to end. One shift.

Before Forgecore
1,840 hours/yr

spent reconciling registers, building Form-21 from spreadsheets, hunting for fitness certificates.

With Forgecore
90 seconds

to generate a hash-chained, signed, regulator-ready Form-21 PDF for any month.

Before Forgecore
"We'll get back to you"

— what you say to the Labour Inspector while frantically pulling registers from three systems.

With Forgecore
"Login here, sir."

Read-only Inspector Mode. Live audit pack. Drill into any worker's evidence chain.

The hidden cost

Every untracked worker is a ₹2.4 lakh penalty waiting to happen.

CLRA Section 23 + Factories Act + DPDP Act compounded — a single inspection that flags 20 unverified contract workers can cost a plant ₹48 lakh in penalties, suspended licenses, and remediation costs. Forgecore's evidence chain is what stands between your plant head and that PDF from the Labour Department.

Book a 30-min audit-readiness review →
Pilot Program · Limited slots · 2026

Be one of the first 5 plants on Forgecore.

Pilot customers get 6 months of priority support, a dedicated solution architect, founder-level escalation, and pricing locked at ₹35/worker/month for 24 months.

Frequently asked questions

Answers your CFO, Compliance Head, and IT team will ask.

What is Forgecore?

Forgecore is a cloud-based industrial contractor workforce platform built India-first for manufacturing plants employing 1,000 to 10,000+ contract workers. It handles worker onboarding (Aadhaar KYC, biometric, fitness, ID print) in under four hours, auto-generates Form-21 and other CLRA, BOCW, DPDP compliance registers, runs biometric gate operations, and maintains a hash-chained 3-year audit trail across all 10 plant user roles.

Which Indian regulations does Forgecore comply with?

Forgecore is engineered compliant with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDP), Aadhaar Act 2016 (with the 2019 amendment), IT Act 2000 with SPDI Rules 2011, CERT-In Directions of April 2022, Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970, Factories Act 1948, Building and Other Construction Workers Act 1996 (BOCW), EPF and ESI Acts, ISO 27001:2022, and is preparing for SOC 2 Type II certification.

How is Forgecore different from SAP Fieldglass, Beeline, or Indian HRIS like greytHR?

SAP Fieldglass and Beeline are global vendor management systems retrofitted for Indian compliance, often missing native Form-21 generation, CLRA-specific registers, AUA/KUA Aadhaar authentication, and DPDP consent capture in vernacular languages. greytHR, Keka, Darwinbox and Zoho People are HRIS platforms designed for permanent staff payroll, not the contract workforce lifecycle. Forgecore is engineered specifically for India's industrial contract labour reality from day one — Aadhaar-grade KYC, regulator-ready audit packs, gate-side biometric attendance, and the 10 distinct user roles found inside an Indian plant.

What is the Monthly Master Sheet and why does it matter?

The Monthly Master Sheet is the heart of Forgecore — a workers × days matrix that compiles daily attendance into the source-of-truth document for billing, compliance, and audit. It calculates Overtime per Factories Act §59 (default 2× rate, configurable), flags Week-Offs and Public Holidays per state pack, reconciles Forgecore's biometric attendance against the contractor's submitted bill, and locks for billing — at which point Form-21 and contractor invoices generate automatically against it. Every cell edit is hash-chained in the audit trail. This is the document your Time Office and Compliance Head live in every month.

How does Forgecore validate contractor bills before payment?

Forgecore runs every contractor bill through a multi-stage approval chain — typically HOD → Time Office → Compliance → Accounts → Payment, configurable per tenant. At the Compliance stage, the bill is blocked from payment until five statutory gates pass: EPF ECR submitted and paid, ESIC ECR submitted and paid, Labour License valid for the period, Form XXIV (Half-Yearly Return) filed, and Form XXV (Annual Return) filed. Discrepancies (worker count, OT hours, rate variance) auto-flag and route back to the contractor for correction. TDS under §194C and GST handling (including RCM) are computed automatically. The result: bills reconcile or block, with full audit trail.

What documents does Forgecore collect, and how are they secured?

Document upload is a cross-cutting capability across every Forgecore module. Contractor onboarding collects 12+ statutory documents — Trade License, PF Registration, ESIC Registration, GST Certificate, PAN, Address Proof, Work Order/LOI, Labour License, Form XXIV/XXV acknowledgments, monthly EPF and ESIC ECR challans, plus industry-specific documents (BIS for chemicals, PESO for explosives, drug license for pharma, FSSAI for food). Worker onboarding collects Aadhaar (masked), PAN, photograph, address proof, fitness certificate, training certificates. Every document is virus-scanned (ClamAV), OCR-parsed for searchable content, encrypted at rest with KMS-managed keys, versioned, expiry-tracked with automatic renewal alerts, and retained for 7 years in S3 Object Lock immutable storage. PII-bearing documents are watermarked on download with the viewer's name and timestamp.

Does Forgecore work without internet at the plant gate?

Yes. Gate operations are designed to be offline-tolerant. The gate kiosk runs as a Progressive Web App with local caching of the active worker roster. When connectivity drops, attendance events queue locally and sync automatically when the connection restores. Monsoon-season and rural plant operations remain uninterrupted.

How does Forgecore handle Aadhaar data securely under DPDP?

Forgecore stores only masked Aadhaar (last 4 digits) under explicit DPDP consent captured in the worker's preferred language. Full Aadhaar numbers are never stored — only audit reference codes from UIDAI authentication. Biometric templates are encrypted at rest with customer-controlled keys. All consent records, data access events, and processing operations are hash-chained in an immutable audit log retained for 7 years. Subject rights requests (access, deletion, portability, correction) are automated through the DPDP console.

Does Forgecore require a mobile app for workers?

No. Forgecore is pure cloud SaaS. Workers, supervisors, contractors, plant heads, and inspectors all access Forgecore through a standard web browser on any device — desktop, tablet, plant kiosk, or basic Android phone. There is no app store dependency, no installation friction, and no app review delays. Workers see the platform in their preferred language: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, or English.

How does Forgecore handle different types of contract workers?

Forgecore classifies every contract worker into one of three statutory categories: Labour Supply (manpower-supply contractors with biometric attendance), Job Contract (work-output contractors with biometric attendance), and Project Worker (specialist project-based with manual Job Card entry mode). The classification drives the attendance flow, the bill format, the OT eligibility, and the compliance treatment. Custom worker classifications beyond the statutory three are configurable per tenant — useful for casual labour, apprentices, or industry-specific categories.

What integrations does Forgecore support?

Forgecore integrates with UIDAI Aadhaar (AUA/KUA), NSDL/UTIITSL for PAN, biometric devices (Mantra, Cogent, Morpho, Tatvik, Startek), access control systems (Honeywell, Hikvision, ZKTeco, Matrix, Bosch, Suprema), HRMS platforms (SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle Fusion HCM, greytHR, Keka, Darwinbox, Zoho People), Razorpay for payments, hospital management systems (Akhil, MediXcel, Bahmni), DigiLocker, e-Sign providers, SMS DLT, and WhatsApp Business API. Custom integrations are supported on the Plus and Enterprise tiers.

Can a Labour Inspector audit our plant directly through Forgecore?

Yes. Forgecore includes a dedicated Inspector Mode — a separate, read-only login flow for visiting Labour Inspectors and certifying surgeons. They see the relevant registers, Form-21 history, audit trail, and worker-level evidence chain without any export step. Every inspector action is itself logged in your audit trail, creating a defensible record of regulatory engagement.

Where is Forgecore data hosted? Is it India-resident?

Yes. Forgecore is hosted on AWS Mumbai region (ap-south-1) by default, ensuring full India data residency. All worker personal data, biometric audit codes, compliance registers, and audit logs remain inside Indian sovereign borders. The Enterprise tier supports single-tenant, dedicated VPC, and on-premise deployment options for PSU and defense customers requiring sovereign control.

Does Forgecore work in different Indian states with different labour rules?

Yes. Forgecore ships with versioned state packs that encode each state's specific variations on holiday calendars, Shops & Establishments Act treatment, Factory Rules, minimum wage schedules, and Form-21 schema differences. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Karnataka ship in v1 (priority for the first three pilot zones); Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab, Kerala, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh are added on customer demand. State pack metadata is configuration, not code — Forgecore's compliance team monitors gazette notifications and ships pack updates with regular product releases.

How does Forgecore generate Form-21 and other CLRA returns?

Forgecore's Compliance Engine auto-generates Form-21 (CLRA Rule 78) in under 90 seconds for a 5,000-worker plant. The generation pulls from the locked Monthly Master Sheet — verified attendance, OT calculation, fitness clearances, DPDP consent records, and biometric audit codes — and produces a regulator-ready PDF that's hash-chained, signed by your authorised signatory, and stored in immutable S3 Object Lock for 7 years. Form XXIV (Half-Yearly Return per Rule 81) and Form XXV (Annual Return per Rule 82) generate per contractor with the same provenance. State-specific Form-21 schema variations are applied automatically based on the active state pack. Filing acknowledgments uploaded back to the platform complete the audit chain.

Book a 30-min demo

See Forgecore on a plant like yours.

Live walkthrough tailored to your plant size, contract worker count, and integration stack. Sales engineer + senior Product on the call. We bring a working demo, not slides.

30-min focused walkthrough
Plant-specific ROI estimate
Compliance gap report (free with demo)
NDA-ready · Confidential
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