No. 37 of 2020 · Assented 28 September 2020
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
Registration, safety and health, working hours and leave, women at work, contract labour and migrant workers.
143sections
14chapters
86gazette pages
In force since 21 November 2025
Chapters
- IPreliminaryThis chapter sets the reach of the Code and defines the terms used throughout it. Its definitions of establishment, factory, employer, worker, contractor and core activity decide which workplaces and which people the safety, health, welfare, working-hours and contract labour rules apply to.§1–232 minWorkers for most workplaces to count as an establishment: 10 or moreFactory headcount: 20 or more workers with power; 40 or more without power (a State's own pre-Code number prevails there until amended)
- IIRegistrationThis chapter requires every new establishment covered by the Code to register online with a registering officer, carries over registrations already held under earlier laws, and bars an employer from employing anyone in an unregistered establishment. It sets deadlines for applying, reporting changes and reporting closure, gives a 30-day appeal route, and makes factories, mines, contract labour establishments and building or other construction work give notice before starting operations and intimate the authority when they stop. If the registering officer misses the deadline, registration or cancellation happens automatically.§3–55 minTime to apply for registration: 60 days from the date the Code applies to the establishmentTime to report a change in ownership, management or particulars: 30 days from the change
- IIIDuties of Employer and EmployeesThis chapter sets out who is responsible for safety at work. It puts general duties on every employer, and specific duties on the owner, agent, manager and officials of a mine, on designers, manufacturers, importers and suppliers, and on architects, project engineers and designers of construction work, and it requires notice of serious accidents, dangerous occurrences and listed diseases. It also lists what employees must do and the rights they have, including the right to alert the Inspector-cum-Facilitator to imminent danger at the same time as the employer.§6–1513 minAppointment letter for existing employees: Within 3 months of the Code's commencementHealth examination (notified classes): Annual, free of cost
- IVOccupational Safety and HealthThis chapter sets up the national and state advisory boards on workplace safety and lets the Central Government notify safety and health standards for factories, mines, docks, beedi and cigar units, construction and other establishments. It also gives named officers the power to survey workplaces, creates a government database and portal for inter-State migrant workers, lets the government require safety committees, and makes safety officers compulsory once a workplace reaches set headcounts.§16–229 minSafety officer: factory: 500 or more workersSafety officer: hazardous-process factory: 250 or more workers
- VHealth, Safety and Working ConditionsThis chapter has a single section. It makes the employer responsible for keeping health, safety and working conditions in the establishment up to the standards the Central Government prescribes, and lists the areas those standards can cover, from clean air and drinking water to lighting, space and separate toilets. The Code names the areas; the measurable standards come from rules notified by the government.§231 min
- VIWelfare ProvisionsThis chapter has a single section, section 24. It makes the employer responsible for providing and maintaining the welfare facilities the Central Government prescribes, such as washing areas, locker rooms, sitting arrangements, canteens and first aid, and lets the Central Government prescribe more, such as rest rooms, lunch rooms, ambulance rooms, creches and a welfare officer. The Code names the facilities and the headcounts that trigger the bigger ones, but the detailed standards come from rules made by the Central Government. The provisions reach beyond factories to mines, plantations, building sites and motor transport undertakings.§243 minCanteen: 100 or more workers ordinarily employed, counting contract labourersShelters, rest rooms and lunch room (factory or mine): More than 50 workers ordinarily employed (as prescribed by the Central Government)
- VIIHours of Work and Annual Leave with WagesThis chapter caps how long a worker can be made to work: eight hours a day and six days a week, with overtime paid at twice the rate of wages and only with the worker's consent. It gives every worker who has worked 180 days in a calendar year paid annual leave, and sets special hours and leave rules for mines, motor transport workers, working journalists and sales promotion employees.§25–3211 minMaximum working hours: 8 hours a dayMaximum working days: 6 days a week
- VIIIMaintenance of Registers, Records and ReturnsThis chapter is a single section that sets four duties for every employer of an establishment covered by the Code: keep a register of workers, display notices at the workplace, issue wage slips, and file returns with the Inspector-cum-Facilitator. The register, wage slips and returns may each be electronic or on paper. The register's form and particulars, the manner and form of notices, and the manner and periods for returns are left to rules made by the appropriate Government, so the rules decide the detail.§331 minPeriod within which a day of rest is allowed, as recorded in the register: Every period of 7 days
- IXInspector-cum-Facilitators and Other AuthorityThis chapter sets up the people who enforce the Code: Inspector-cum-Facilitators, Chief Inspector-cum-Facilitators, District Magistrates for mines, third-party auditors and medical officers. It lists what an inspector can do on a visit, lets the government make inspections web-based and randomised, and gives inspectors power to restrict or stop work in a factory, mine, dock or construction site that is dangerous. It also binds employers to cooperate with inspections, and binds inspectors to keep business information and complainants' identities confidential.§34–4221 minHow long a factory imminent-danger order lasts: 3 days, unless extended by the Chief Inspector-cum-FacilitatorMine employer's appeal to the Chief Inspector-cum-Facilitator: Within 10 days of receiving the notice or order
- XEmployment of WomenThis short chapter opens every establishment and every type of work under the Code to women. Women may work before 6 a.m. and after 7 p.m. with their consent, on conditions about safety, holidays and working hours notified by the government. Where the government considers that employing women in an operation is dangerous to their health and safety, it can require the employer to put adequate safeguards in place before women are employed in it.§43–441 minEarly-morning work that needs the woman's consent: Before 6 a.m.Evening and night work that needs the woman's consent: After 7 p.m.
- XISpecial Provisions for Contract Labour and Inter-State Migrant Workers, etc.This chapter collects the special rules for particular kinds of work: contract labour, inter-State migrant workers, audio-visual workers, mines, beedi and cigar units, building work, factories and plantations. For contract labour it sets up contractor licensing, bans contract labour in core activities except in three situations, and makes the principal employer answerable for welfare facilities and unpaid wages. For migrant workers it adds an annual journey fare, equal benefits and accident reporting to both States, and for factories it carries the approval, hazardous-process and workers' right-to-warn rules.§45–9338 minContract labour needed for Part I to apply: 50 or more on any day in the preceding 12 monthsWork not treated as intermittent: More than 120 days in the preceding 12 months, or more than 60 days a year if seasonal
- XIIOffences and PenaltiesThis chapter sets the price of breaking the Code: money penalties of ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh for breaches with no specific penalty, and jail or heavy fines for falsifying records, obstructing Inspectors, breaching hazardous-process duties or causing an accident. It also decides who answers for a breach (the employer, company officers, the actual offender or the worker) and sets the procedure: a 30-day chance to comply before prosecution, a 6-month limit on complaints, penalties imposed by government officers with an appeal, and compounding of many offences for a fixed share of the maximum.§94–11419 minGeneral penalty for a breach with no specific penalty: ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh, plus up to ₹2,000 a day if continued after convictionNot maintaining or producing registers, or not filing returns: ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh (₹50,000 to ₹2 lakh on repeat)
- XIIISocial Security FundThis chapter has a single section. It requires the appropriate Government to set up a social security fund for the welfare of unorganised workers, and directs into it two kinds of money: amounts received for compounding the penalties and offences listed in section 114, and penalties imposed and received by the government-appointed officer under section 111. In practice, money paid to settle or answer those specific violations ends up funding welfare for unorganised workers, with the details of how the fund is run left to rules made by the appropriate Government.§1151 min
- XIVMiscellaneousThis chapter holds the machinery that makes the rest of the Code work: one common licence for factories, beedi and cigar premises and contract labour, the burden of proof on the accused in prosecutions, the government's power to exempt establishments, and the long list of matters left to rules, regulations and bye-laws. It also says the Code overrides inconsistent laws, contracts and awards but keeps any better benefit an employee already has, and it repeals 13 older labour Acts while keeping action taken under them alive so far as it does not conflict with the Code.§116–14341 minTime for the authority to issue a common or single licence: 45 days from receipt of the application, after which it is deemed issuedTime to appeal against a licensing order: 30 days from the date of the order