The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020

On September 22, 2020, Parliament passed the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code; the Industrial Relations Code; and the Code on Social Security. The three were made Acts on September 28. These, along with the Code on Wages, 2019, aim to combine India’s 29 labour laws into four codes.The first Code mentioned here – the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 – seeks to consolidate and amend the laws regulating the occupational safety, health and working conditions of the persons employed in an establishment and connected matters.The 86-page Code contains 14 chapters: Preliminary (Chapter I); Registration (Chapter II); Duties of employer and employees, etc. (Chapter III); Occupational Safety and Health (Chapter IV); Health, safety and working conditions (Chapter V); Welfare provisions (chapter VI); Hours of work and annual leave with wages (Chapter VII); Maintenance of registers, records and returns (Chapter VIII); Inspector-cum-Facilitators and other Authority (Chapter XI); Special provision relating to employment of women (Chapter X); Special provisions for contract labour and inter-State migrant worker, etc. (Chapter XI); Offences and penalties (Chapter XII); Social security fund (Chapter XIII); and Miscellaneous (Chapter XIV).