FAQs on India's New Labour Codes

The OSH Code 2020 is the law that consolidated thirteen separate central Acts governing workplace safety, health and working conditions into a single code of fourteen chapters and roughly one hundred and forty three sections. Before this Code, a factory owner had to track the Factories Act, the Contract Labour Act and several other laws at once, each with its own forms, registers and inspecting authority. Section 1 of the Code gives its short title and lays out that different provisions could be brought into force on different dates by central government notification, which is exactly what happened between 2020 and 2025.

The Code received the assent of the President on 28 September 2020 but stayed dormant for five years while states framed their own rules. The central government notified 21 November 2025 as the date on which the Code, along with the Code on Wages, the Industrial Relations Code and the Code on Social Security, came into full operation across the country, as provided under Section 1(2) of the Code.

The Code subsumes the Factories Act 1948, the Mines Act 1952, the Dock Workers (Safety, Health and Welfare) Act 1986, the Building and Other Construction Workers Act 1996, the Plantations Labour Act 1951, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970, the Inter State Migrant Workmen Act 1979, the Working Journalists and other Newspaper Employees Act 1955, the Working Journalists (Fixation of Rates of Wages) Act 1958, the Motor Transport Workers Act 1961, the Sales Promotion Employees Act 1976, the Beedi and Cigar Workers Act 1966, and the Cine Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers Act 1981. All thirteen now sit under one framework as listed in the Code's repeal schedule.

As a broad rule, the safety, health and welfare obligations of the Code apply to every establishment employing ten or more workers, in addition to mines and docks, which are covered irrespective of headcount. This general threshold runs through most of Chapters III to IX. Certain specific parts of Chapter XI carry their own separate thresholds, which are covered later in this list.

No. Section 1(3) of the Code specifically excludes offices of the central government and offices of state governments from its application, along with any ship of war of any nationality. However, where a central or state government office engages contract labour through a contractor, the contract labour provisions of Chapter XI Part I still apply to that engagement, with the government office treated as the principal employer.

Section 2 of the Code defines an employee as a person employed on wages by an establishment to do skilled, semi skilled, unskilled, manual, operational, supervisory, managerial, administrative, technical or clerical work, whether the terms of employment are express or implied. Apprentices engaged under the Apprentices Act 1961 are excluded from this definition, which is why properly registered apprentices are governed separately. Example. A person hired directly on the payroll to operate machinery is an employee under the Code, but a trainee formally registered under the Apprentices Act 1961 and drawing a stipend is not, and remains governed by that separate Act instead.

An establishment under Section 2 of the Code covers any place where an industry, trade, business, manufacturing or occupation is carried on and includes government establishments where the appropriate government is the principal employer for contract labour purposes. The definition was deliberately written to be uniform, since the old laws it replaced each defined establishment differently, which used to create confusion about which law applied where.

Yes, the Code applies uniformly across India, but several provisions leave room for the appropriate government, meaning the central government for central sphere establishments and the state government for most private establishments, to notify specific standards, thresholds and procedures for their jurisdiction. This is why the Ministry of Labour and Employment released a Compliance Handbook in February 2026 that separately explains obligations for establishments falling under central government jurisdiction.

Yes. Section 3 of the Code requires every establishment employing ten or more employees to apply electronically for registration within sixty days of the establishment coming into existence. The application goes to the registering officer notified by the appropriate government, and the process runs through the Shram Suvidha portal. Praans Consultech's establishment registration service can handle this filing end to end if you would rather not manage the portal yourself. Example. A garment unit that crosses ten workers for the first time in June has roughly until the end of July, sixty days from that date, to complete its electronic registration.

Establishments already registered under any of the thirteen repealed Acts do not need to register afresh. Under Section 3, such establishments are deemed registered under the OSH Code, but the employer must still intimate the existing registration particulars to the registering officer electronically, as set out in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules, 2026, notified on 8 May 2026, which finalised and replaced the earlier draft rules published for comment on 30 December 2025.

Section 3 protects the employer here. If the registering officer fails to register the establishment or fails to act on the application within the prescribed period, the establishment is deemed to be registered automatically on expiry of that period, and an electronic certificate of registration is auto generated. Responsibility for the delay is placed on the officer, not the employer.

Yes. Any change in the particulars of a registered establishment, such as a change of address, ownership or nature of business, must be intimated electronically to the registering officer within thirty days of the change, under Section 3.

Yes. Section 5 requires employers to give electronic notice of the commencement or cessation of operations of an establishment, which covers a factory, mine, contract labour establishment, or building and other construction work. This notice obligation exists independently of the general registration requirement under Section 3.

Section 6(1)(a) of the Code places a general duty on every employer to ensure that the workplace is free from hazards that cause, or are likely to cause, injury or occupational disease to employees. This is the foundation duty from which most of the specific safety obligations in the rest of the Code flow.

Yes. Under Section 6(1)(c), the employer must provide a free annual health examination or test to employees of a prescribed age, or a prescribed class of employees, as notified by the appropriate government. This obligation applies regardless of whether the establishment is a factory, an office or a service sector unit, provided the employee falls within the notified age or class. Example. A chemical processing unit whose workers are exposed to hazardous fumes would typically fall within a notified class requiring the free annual checkup, even if the unit itself employs fewer than twenty people.

Yes, and this is one of the most cited reforms of the Code. Section 7 makes it mandatory for every employer to issue a written appointment letter to every employee, stating the designation, category of work, wage details and the social security benefits the worker is entitled to. This closes a long standing gap, since millions of workers previously had no written proof of employment at all. Example. A worker joining a logistics warehouse on a fixed term contract must still receive a written appointment letter stating the wage, designation and social security entitlements, exactly as a permanent employee would.

Section 8 of the Code places a duty on designers, manufacturers, importers and suppliers of any article used at work to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that the article is safe and without health risk when properly used, and to provide adequate information about it. This duty exists independently of the employer's own obligations under Section 6.

Section 10 requires the employer to notify the prescribed authority of any accident in the establishment that causes death, or a serious bodily injury that prevents the injured worker from resuming duty for forty eight hours or more, or is of any other nature prescribed by the appropriate government. The notice must be given in the manner and within the time frame set by rule. Example. If a worker falls from height at a construction site and is unable to return to work for three days, the forty eight hour threshold is crossed and the employer must notify the prescribed authority under Section 10.

Yes. Section 11 requires notification of any dangerous occurrence in an establishment to the prescribed authority, regardless of whether it actually caused injury or disability. The logic is preventive, a near miss today can be a fatality tomorrow if the underlying hazard is not recorded and addressed.

Section 12, read with the Third Schedule of the Code, lists twenty nine notifiable diseases that trigger a mandatory reporting duty, including lead poisoning, silicosis, byssinosis, asbestosis, noise induced hearing loss, occupational cancer and toxic jaundice caused by poisonous substances. If a worker contracts any of these, the employer must inform the prescribed authority in the prescribed form within the notified time. Example. A worker in a stone crushing unit who develops silicosis after years of dust exposure triggers a mandatory disease notification, since silicosis appears on the Third Schedule list.

Yes, and this cuts both ways. Section 14 gives every employee the right to obtain information from the employer about health and safety matters connected to their work, and to raise concerns with a Safety Committee constituted under Section 22. Section 15, on the other side, places a duty on the employee not to willfully interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interest of safety or health.

Section 16 establishes the National Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board, a tripartite body with representatives of employers, workers and independent experts, whose role is to advise the central government on the standards, rules and regulations to be framed under the Code. It functions at the apex level for occupational safety policy.

Yes. Section 17 requires each state government to constitute a State Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board to perform a parallel advisory function for matters falling within state jurisdiction. The state board mirrors the composition principle of the national board, drawing on employer, worker and independent representation.

Section 18 empowers the appropriate government to declare occupational safety and health standards for specific establishments, classes of establishments, or classes of workers. These standards, once declared, become binding, and Section 6(1)(b) separately requires every employer to comply with whatever is declared under Section 18.

Yes. Section 19 authorises research related activities into occupational safety and health, allowing the appropriate government or a body it designates to study workplace hazards, exposure limits and preventive measures on an ongoing basis, feeding back into the standards set under Section 18.

Under Section 22, the appropriate government may, by general or special order, require an establishment to constitute a Safety Committee consisting of representatives of both the employer and the workers, with the aim of promoting cooperation on health and safety matters. Certain establishments must additionally appoint qualified safety officers. Building and other construction work employing two hundred and fifty or more workers, and mines employing one hundred or more workers, are specifically required to appoint safety officers with prescribed qualifications under this same section. Example. A building site employing three hundred workers crosses the two hundred and fifty worker threshold and must appoint a qualified safety officer, while a smaller site with sixty workers only needs the general Safety Committee arrangement where the appropriate government requires one.

Yes, in an unusual but useful provision. Section 21 requires the appropriate government to arrange for the collection of statistics relating to safety, health and working conditions, and specifically mandates a portal for information relating to inter State migrant workers, which now feeds into the eShram based tracking system used across the labour codes.

Section 23 places a broad responsibility on the employer to maintain safe, healthy and suitable working conditions in the establishment. This is deliberately drafted as an umbrella provision covering cleanliness, hygiene, ventilation, lighting, safe drinking water, waste disposal and adequate working space, with details to be prescribed by the appropriate government.

Yes. Section 23 specifically requires separate toilet facilities for male, female and transgender workers, a change from the older laws which generally spoke only of male and female facilities. This is one of the clearest examples of the Code updating workplace law for gender inclusivity.

The precise technical parameters are left to be prescribed, but Section 23 obliges the employer to ensure proper ventilation and adequate lighting as part of maintaining suitable working conditions. Establishment specific standards for factories, mines and other categories are further layered on through the standards declared under Section 18.

Yes, safe drinking water is expressly listed among the working condition obligations in Section 23. Employers cannot treat this as a discretionary welfare gesture, it is a compliance requirement enforceable by the Inspector cum Facilitator under Chapter IX.

Section 23 requires an effective arrangement for the disposal of waste as prescribed, and several secondary sources of guidance issued since November 2025 clarify that this extends to hazardous and toxic waste, including electronic waste, generated in the course of the establishment's operations.

Yes, adequate space is one of the conditions listed under Section 23 as part of the employer's responsibility for maintaining safe and suitable working conditions. Specific space norms for particular industries are typically fixed through the standards process under Section 18 rather than in the Code itself.

Under Section 24, a canteen becomes mandatory once an establishment employs one hundred or more workers, as prescribed by the appropriate government. This is a reduction from the two hundred and fifty worker threshold that applied under the erstwhile Factories Act, meaning more mid sized establishments now fall within the canteen obligation. Example. An IT services office with one hundred and ten employees must provide a canteen, even though nobody would ordinarily picture an office as a canteen providing establishment.

Section 24 requires an establishment employing more than fifty workers to provide crèche facilities for children below six years of age. The employer can meet this obligation directly, or through a shared or common crèche run by the government, a private entity, an NGO, or a group of establishments pooling resources. Example. A business process outsourcing unit employing seventy staff crosses the fifty worker mark and must arrange a crèche, whether directly or through a shared facility with nearby establishments.

Section 24 requires employers to provide washing facilities and separate bathing facilities for male, female and transgender workers, along with locker rooms and sitting arrangements, as part of the general welfare package every covered establishment must maintain.

Yes. First aid provision is listed among the welfare facilities required under Section 24, along with rest or shelter rooms. The exact scale of first aid infrastructure, such as the number of first aid boxes per number of workers, is left to be prescribed.

Section 24 requires an ambulance room in every mine and in every building or other construction work where more than five hundred workers are ordinarily employed. This threshold reflects the higher accident risk associated with mining and large construction sites compared to a typical office or shop. Example. A construction site with four hundred and fifty workers does not yet need an ambulance room, but the same site crossing five hundred workers must have one in place.

Beyond the general welfare package, Section 24 requires adequate, suitable and separate shelter or rest rooms for male, female and transgender workers, along with a lunch room, in every mine where more than fifty workers are ordinarily employed. Mines employing two hundred and fifty or more workers must additionally appoint a qualified Welfare Officer under the same section. Example. A mine employing two hundred and eighty workers needs both the rest room and lunch room required above fifty workers, and a qualified Welfare Officer required above two hundred and fifty workers.

Yes. Section 24 requires the employer to provide free temporary living accommodation to building workers at or near the worksite, and to ensure the accommodation is removed and the land restored once the work is complete. Where the work is carried out through a contractor, the principal employer must bear the accommodation expenses the contractor incurs.

Yes, not just for factories and mines. Section 24 lists locker rooms and rest or shelter rooms as part of the standard welfare package applicable across covered establishments, not restricted to any one industry, subject to the appropriate government prescribing the applicable scale and standard.

Section 25 fixes the normal working day at eight hours and the normal working week at forty eight hours for most employees. The appropriate government retains the power to fix rest intervals and the spread over period during which these hours must be completed. Example. A retail employee scheduled for a ten hour shift without consent, and without the extra two hours being paid as overtime, puts the employer in breach of Section 25 and Section 27 together.

Only with the employee's consent and only as overtime. Section 25 allows extended hours where operational needs require it, but Section 27 makes clear that any work beyond the prescribed daily or weekly limit must be treated and paid as overtime, calculated on whichever basis, daily or weekly, is more favourable to the worker.

Section 27 requires overtime to be paid at twice the ordinary rate of wages. The Code also requires the worker's consent before overtime can be assigned, and the appropriate government has the power to fix the maximum permissible overtime hours, replacing the earlier fixed limit of seventy five hours a quarter with a more flexible, government notified ceiling. Example. A worker whose ordinary hourly wage works out to two hundred rupees must be paid four hundred rupees for every hour of overtime performed, under Section 27.

Under Section 26, a worker cannot ordinarily be required to work more than six days a week and is entitled to at least one weekly holiday, along with compensatory holidays where the weekly holiday is substituted under prescribed conditions. Example. A factory that schedules a worker for seven consecutive working days without a rest day breaches Section 26, even if the worker is willing and the wages are paid correctly.

Yes, subject to safeguards. Section 28 governs night shift arrangements generally, and Section 43 in Chapter X specifically permits women to be employed before six in the morning or after seven in the evening, provided their consent is obtained and the employer puts in place the safety measures, transport and other conditions prescribed by the appropriate government. Example. A woman working a night shift at a call centre from ten in the evening can legally do so, but only after giving consent and once the employer has arranged safe transport and the other safeguards required under Section 43.

No. Section 29 prohibits overlapping shifts, meaning an establishment running a shift system cannot schedule successive shifts in a way that overlaps, since this would effectively extend a worker's presence at the workplace beyond the permitted hours without being properly accounted for as overtime.

Section 30 restricts double employment specifically in the case of a factory and a mine, preventing a worker from being employed in more than one such establishment simultaneously in a manner that would breach the daily and weekly working hour limits fixed under Section 25.

Section 32 sets the eligibility threshold for annual leave with wages at one hundred and eighty days of actual work in a calendar year. This is a reduction from the two hundred and forty days that used to apply under the earlier Factories Act, meaning workers now qualify for paid leave considerably sooner. Example. A worker who joined in March and completes one hundred and eighty actual working days by the following January becomes eligible for paid annual leave, without needing to wait out a full calendar year of continuous service.

Under the Code, unused annual leave can be accumulated up to thirty days. Where a state law permits a higher accumulation limit that is more beneficial to the worker, the Ministry of Labour and Employment clarified in its official FAQ dated 16 March 2026 that the more beneficial state provision continues to apply, since the Code does not override provisions that favour the employee. Example. If a state law permits accumulation up to sixty days and this is more favourable to the worker, that sixty day limit continues to apply in that state rather than the Code's own thirty day figure.

No fixed cap exists. The same official clarification dated 16 March 2026 confirms there is no prescribed maximum limit on leave encashment under the Code, and that leave exceeding thirty days which was applied for but not granted by the employer can be encashed at the end of the calendar year.

Section 33 requires employers to maintain a Register of Employees, a Register of Attendance cum Muster Roll, and a Register of Wages, Overtime, Deductions and Dangerous Occurrences, in the prescribed form. These can be kept physically or electronically, and the number of mandatory registers under the Code has been cut down sharply compared to the fifty six registers that existed collectively under the thirteen older laws.

A single electronic annual return suffices. Section 33, together with the wider reform intent behind the four labour codes, replaced the twenty one separate returns that used to be filed under the erstwhile laws with one unified electronic filing to the appropriate government. Example. An establishment that previously filed separate annual returns under the Factories Act and the Contract Labour Act now files only one unified electronic return covering both sets of obligations.

Yes. Alongside the registers required under Section 33, employers must issue wage slips in the prescribed form to every worker, consistent with the broader transparency objective the Code shares with the Code on Wages 2019.

Yes, Section 33 expressly allows registers, records and returns to be maintained electronically or in the manner prescribed by the appropriate government, reflecting the Code's broader push toward digital, portal based compliance rather than paper registers gathering dust in a back office.

Section 34 provides for the appointment of Inspector cum Facilitators by the appropriate government. Unlike the older labour inspector model, this role is explicitly framed to include a facilitative function, meaning guiding employers toward compliance rather than only searching for violations to penalise.

Section 35 gives the Inspector cum Facilitator powers to enter and inspect premises, examine records and registers, question the employer and employees, take copies of documents and examine any person found in the establishment. These powers extend to any establishment covered by the Code, subject to procedural safeguards.

Yes. Section 36 sets out the powers and duties of the District Magistrate under the Code, principally to support enforcement where matters require coordination beyond the regular labour administration, such as during accident investigations or emergency situations at a covered establishment.

Section 37 allows the appropriate government to formulate schemes for third party audit and certification of establishments by professional experts, rather than relying solely on government inspectors. This is intended to widen the pool of qualified assessors checking compliance with safety standards, particularly in technically complex industries.

Yes. Section 38 grants the Inspector cum Facilitator special powers specifically in respect of a factory, a mine, dock work, and building or other construction work, recognising that these categories of establishment carry a higher inherent safety risk than a typical office or retail shop and may need closer supervision.

Yes. Section 43 removes the older, more restrictive prohibitions and permits women to be employed in all establishments and for all types of work, including operations that were previously off limits to women under laws like the Factories Act 1948, subject to the safeguards discussed below. Example. A woman can now be employed as a machine operator on a factory floor, an assignment that was restricted or barred for women under several of the older laws the Code replaced.

Under Section 43, an employer can schedule a woman worker before six in the morning or after seven in the evening only with her consent, and only if the prescribed safety measures, transport arrangements, working hours and holiday conditions set by the appropriate government are complied with. Example. A hospital rostering a woman nurse for a shift ending at eleven at night must record her consent and confirm safe transport home before finalising that roster.

Yes, in principle, but with mandatory safeguards. Section 44 requires the employer to put in place adequate safety safeguards before employing women in establishments or operations that the appropriate government considers dangerous to their health and safety, effectively conditioning access on protection rather than prohibiting it outright.

Yes. Section 82 allows the appropriate government to prohibit or restrict the employment of pregnant women in manufacturing processes or operations that involve a serious risk of bodily injury, poisoning or disease, recognising that some hazardous processes remain unsuitable during pregnancy regardless of the general opening up of work under Section 43. Example. A pregnant worker in a unit handling lead based paints could be moved to a different task under Section 82, given the recognized health risk that process carries.

Yes, transport from the workplace to the worker's residence is one of the specific safety conditions the appropriate government requires under Section 43 before women can be scheduled for night hours, alongside adequate lighting, security personnel and other safety measures at the workplace itself.

Section 45 makes Chapter XI Part I applicable to every establishment in which fifty or more contract labourers are employed, or were employed, on any day of the preceding twelve months. This is a rise from the twenty worker threshold that applied under the earlier Contract Labour Act 1970, though the underlying safety and welfare protections under Sections 23 and 24 still apply to any establishment with ten or more workers regardless of this higher licensing threshold. Praans Consultech's compliance software can track this fifty worker threshold automatically across multiple sites so a licence requirement never gets missed. Example. A manufacturing unit engaging forty five contract workers falls outside the licensing requirement of Chapter XI Part I, but once it crosses fifty, the contractor must obtain a licence under Section 47.

Yes. Section 47 requires every contractor employing fifty or more contract workers to obtain a licence, and a contractor wishing to supply or engage contract labour across multiple states, or across India, can obtain that licence from an authority notified by the central government rather than approaching each state separately. Example. A staffing agency supplying sixty security guards to a client company must hold a valid contractor licence before deploying those guards.

Section 48 fixes the validity of a contract labour license at five years, a considerable simplification compared to the shorter, more frequently renewed licenses that were common under the old Contract Labour Act regime in most states. Example. A contractor licensed in January 2026 does not need to renew that license until 2031, barring any material change in circumstances that requires an update.

Section 53 places responsibility for providing welfare facilities to contract labour, as prescribed under Sections 23 and 24, on the principal employer of the establishment where the contract labour is deployed. The contractor cannot be used as a shield to avoid this obligation. Example. If a factory brings in contract workers through a staffing agency, it is the factory as principal employer, not the staffing agency, that must ensure canteen and crèche access for those workers.

Section 55 makes the principal employer liable to pay the contract labour directly if the contractor fails to pay wages within the prescribed period, or makes a short payment. The principal employer can then recover the amount from the contractor, but the worker is not left unpaid while that recovery plays out. Example. If a contractor fails to pay forty contract workers on time, the principal employer must step in and pay those workers directly, then separately pursue recovery from the contractor.

Section 59 applies Chapter XI Part II to every establishment in which ten or more inter State migrant workers are employed, or were employed, on any day of the preceding twelve months. This is a far lower threshold than the fifty worker figure used for general contract labour, reflecting the additional vulnerability migrant workers face. Example. A construction company employing eight workers from another state does not trigger Chapter XI Part II, but the same company employing twelve such workers does.

The definition, drawn from Sections 59 to 65 of the Code, covers a worker recruited directly by an employer, or indirectly through a contractor, in one state for employment in an establishment situated in another state, and it was widened compared to the old Inter State Migrant Workmen Act to also include workers who migrate on their own and then find employment in another state.

Yes. Section 61 requires the employer to pay every inter State migrant worker a lump sum journey allowance once a year, to cover the to and fro travel fare between the place of employment and the worker's native place, on top of their regular wages and other entitlements. Example. A migrant construction worker from Bihar working in Gujarat is entitled to one lump sum journey allowance a year to cover the return fare to and from Bihar, on top of regular wages.

Yes. Section 21, read with the wider eShram framework, requires the collection of statistics through a dedicated portal for inter State migrant workers, and their entitlement record is designed to travel with them across states through their Universal Account Number, rather than being tied to a single employer or a single state.

Chapter XI Part III defines audio visual workers broadly to include actors, musicians, singers, dancers, news readers, anchors, dubbing artists and stunt persons, a deliberate widening compared to the older Cine Workers Act, which gives these categories formal legal recognition and access to statutory protections for the first time.

Working journalists, whose service conditions were previously governed by the Working Journalists Act 1955 and the Working Journalists (Fixation of Rates of Wages) Act 1958, now fall within the OSH Code's Chapter XI Part III framework, under which the appropriate government may prescribe a maximum of one hundred and forty four working hours across any period of four consecutive weeks, along with a rest period of not less than twenty four consecutive hours during any period of seven consecutive days. Example. A journalist working forty hours a week generally stays within the one hundred and forty four hour, four week ceiling, provided the mandated weekly rest period is also respected.

Yes, and this is a genuinely new development. Before the OSH Code, stunt persons and dubbing artists in the film and OTT industry largely worked outside any dedicated statutory framework. Chapter XI Part III now brings them within the audio visual worker category, extending the Code's safety and welfare protections to this workforce for the first time.

Yes. Unlike most other categories under the Code, mines are covered irrespective of headcount, consistent with the Chapter II registration requirement that applies the Code to all mines and docks alongside establishments with ten or more workers generally. Example. A small mine with just fifteen workers is still fully covered by the Code's mine specific safety duties, unlike a general establishment which would need at least ten workers just to trigger the base duties.

Yes. Section 67 requires every mine to be under the control of a sole manager who possesses the qualifications prescribed by the appropriate government, continuing a core safety principle that was central to the earlier Mines Act 1952.

Under Section 24, mines employing two hundred and fifty or more workers must appoint a qualified Welfare Officer, mines employing more than fifty workers must provide separate shelter or rest rooms and a lunch room, and mines with more than five hundred workers must maintain an ambulance room, layering additional obligations on top of the general safety duties in Sections 6 and 23. Example. A mine with two hundred and ten workers needs the rest room and lunch room facilities but does not yet need a dedicated Welfare Officer, since that obligation only starts at two hundred and fifty workers.

Major docks do not form a separate numbered part of Chapter XI the way mines or contract labour do. Instead, dock work is brought within the Code's general occupational safety and health standards under Section 18, and the central government's power to notify detailed regulations specifically for major docks is exercised under Section 136 in Chapter XIV.

Yes. Section 38 extends the special enforcement powers of the Inspector cum Facilitator to factories, mines, dock work, and building or other construction work as a group, recognising that these four categories together account for a disproportionate share of serious workplace accidents.

Yes. Chapter XI Part V specifically absorbs the protections that used to exist under the Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act 1966, covering matters like working conditions, health and welfare facilities for this historically under regulated segment of workers, who are frequently home based or working from small, unlicensed premises.

Yes. Section 119 allows a person to apply for a single common licence covering a factory, industrial premises used for beedi and cigar work, and the engagement of contract labour, in any combination, applied for electronically in the manner prescribed by the appropriate government, rather than obtaining three separate licences.

Yes. Building and other construction work is covered under Chapter XI Part VI, and Section 24 requires the employer to provide free temporary living accommodation to building workers at or near the worksite. The broader safety and welfare duties under Sections 6, 23 and 24 apply once the establishment crosses the general ten worker threshold, while safety officer appointment becomes mandatory specifically once two hundred and fifty or more workers are employed on the site under Section 22. Example. A residential tower project employing three hundred workers must appoint a safety officer, while a smaller renovation project with thirty workers only needs the general safety and welfare duties, not a dedicated safety officer.

No, not for operations that carry accident risk connected to that impairment. Section 78 prohibits an employer from employing any person known, or reasonably believed, to have a hearing impairment, defective vision, or a tendency to giddiness in building or construction operations that could pose a danger to the worker or to others on site. Example. A worker known to have significant vision impairment cannot be assigned to operate a crane or work at height on a construction site under Section 78, though the same worker could be assigned to a role without that specific risk.

Section 24 places the financial responsibility on the principal employer, who must reimburse the expenses the contractor incurs in providing the temporary accommodation, ensuring that the cost of this welfare obligation cannot simply be pushed down onto a smaller contractor without compensation.

Generally no. Building and other construction work carried out purely for the personal residential use of an individual or a group of individuals is treated differently where the total project cost stays within limits set by the appropriate government and the number of workers is within the notified limit, keeping small homeowners largely outside the formal compliance net that applies to commercial developers and large contractors. Example. An individual building a personal home for around thirty lakh rupees with six labourers is unlikely to fall within the formal building and construction compliance net, whereas a builder developing a hundred unit residential project certainly would.

Section 2, in its definition clauses, raises the factory threshold to twenty or more workers where the manufacturing process uses power, and forty or more workers where it does not, up from the earlier ten and twenty worker thresholds under the Factories Act 1948. Establishments below this threshold are not classed as factories for licensing purposes, though the general safety and welfare duties under Sections 6, 23 and 24 still apply to them once they employ ten or more workers. Example. A small workshop running powered machinery and employing fifteen workers does not meet the new twenty worker threshold and is not classed as a factory for licensing purposes, though it still owes its workers the general safety duties under Sections 6 and 23.

Yes. The appropriate government may set up a Site Appraisal Committee under Chapter XI Part VII to consider and give recommendations on an application for permission to establish, or expand, a factory involving a hazardous process, with Section 85 specifically fixing the occupier's responsibility in relation to such hazardous processes. Example. A chemical company proposing to expand a plant that handles hazardous solvents would need to go through the Site Appraisal Committee process before that expansion is permitted.

Section 88 empowers the appropriate government to prescribe the permissible limits of exposure to chemicals and toxic substances in manufacturing processes, and Section 87 allows emergency standards to be set for the enforcement of suitable safety standards where such hazardous processes are involved. Section 89 separately gives workers the right to warn about, and act on, imminent danger at the workplace.

Section 92 of Chapter XI Part VIII requires the employer to provide facilities for workers in plantations, continuing the welfare tradition that existed under the earlier Plantations Labour Act 1951, and covering matters like housing, medical facilities and recreational amenities on larger plantation holdings.

Yes. Section 93 addresses safety specifically for plantation work, recognising that plantations involve a distinct set of occupational hazards, such as exposure to agrochemicals and outdoor terrain risks, compared to a factory or an office based establishment.

Section 94 sets the general penalty at a fine ranging from two lakh rupees to three lakh rupees for an employer, where a specific penalty for the violation is not otherwise prescribed elsewhere in the Code. An employee who violates the provisions applicable to employees can be fined up to ten thousand rupees. If the contravention continues even after conviction, the Code allows a further penalty of up to two thousand rupees for each additional day the violation continues. If you are unsure whether your current practices would hold up under one of these general penalty provisions, Praans Consultech's compliance services include a full OSH Code exposure review. Example. An employer found in violation of a welfare provision that carries no specific penalty of its own would typically face a fine somewhere between two lakh and three lakh rupees under Section 94.

Section 95 makes obstruction of a Chief Inspector cum Facilitator or an Inspector cum Facilitator punishable with imprisonment of up to three months, or a fine of up to one lakh rupees, or both, reflecting how seriously the Code treats interference with the enforcement machinery. Example. A factory manager who refuses an Inspector cum Facilitator entry to inspect the premises risks imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to one lakh rupees.

Section 96 prescribes a penalty for non maintenance of the registers and records required under Section 33, and for failing to file the prescribed returns. Section 98 separately penalises falsification of such records, which is treated as a more serious offence than simple non maintenance.

Yes, for offences that qualify. Section 114 introduces compounding of certain offences, allowing many procedural or minor lapses to be resolved by payment of a compounding fee rather than going through a full criminal prosecution, a facility that did not exist in this form under most of the thirteen older laws the Code replaced. Example. A first time paperwork lapse, such as a late return filing, is the kind of offence more likely to be resolved through compounding under Section 114 than through a full prosecution.

Yes, in appropriate circumstances. Section 109 addresses offences by companies and fixes liability on the persons in charge of, and responsible to, the company for the conduct of its business at the time the offence was committed, alongside the company itself, unless that person can show the offence occurred without their knowledge or that they exercised due diligence. Example. The factory manager who was actually in charge of daily operations when a safety violation occurred can be prosecuted personally alongside the company itself under Section 109.

Yes. Section 110 places a limitation on the prosecution and cognizance of offences under the Code, meaning a complaint or prosecution cannot be initiated indefinitely after an alleged violation, and must be brought within the period fixed by the Code and its rules.

Section 115, forming the whole of Chapter XIII, establishes a Social Security Fund connected to the welfare obligations the Code creates for categories like building and construction workers. Chapter XIV then closes the Code with a set of general powers, including Section 116 on delegation of powers, Section 117 on the onus of proving a person's age in disputed cases, Section 119 on the common licence for factories, beedi and cigar premises and contract labour discussed earlier, Section 120 on the effect of any law or agreement inconsistent with the Code, being void to the extent of that inconsistency, and Section 136, which gives the central government the power to make detailed regulations for categories such as mines and major docks.