Type:Preventive Compliance Frequency: Monthly

Action to be taken:
Ensure that employees covered under the Minimum Wages Act have a normal working day of not more than the prescribed hours and with the prescribed intervals. Ensure that employees are paid overtime at the prescribed rate for hours worked beyond the number prescribed. Every worker shall be allowed a fixed day of rest every week. An employee working on a rest day will be paid at a rate not less than the overtime rate.

Audit Requirement:
Are workers covered under the Minimum Wages Act paid overtime for working beyond the prescribed hours ?

Supporting Documents:
Details of prescribed working hours and details of overtime paid

Related Triggers:
Employees Working On Holidays
Overtime Work

Related Keywords:
Compensatory Holidays
Holidays
Hours of Work / Working Hours
Minimum Wages
Overtime
Payment of Wages
Rest Intervals
Weekly Holidays

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Related Sections:
Minimum Wages Act, 1948
13:Fixing hours for a normal working day, etc.:
(1) In regard to any scheduled employment minimum rates of wages in respect of which have been fixed under this Act, the appropriate Government may-
(a) fix the number of hours of work which shall constitute a normal working day, inclusive of one or more specified intervals;
(b) provide for a day of rest in every period of seven days which shall be allowed to all employees or to any specified class of employees and for the payment of remuneration in respect of such day of rest ;
(c) provide for payment for work on a day of rest at a rate not less than the overtime rate.
(2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall, in relation to the following classes of employees, apply only to such extent and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed:-
(a) employees engaged on urgent work, or in any emergency which could not have been foreseen or prevented;
(b) employees engaged in work in the nature of preparatory or complementary work which must necessarily be carried on outside the limits laid down for the general working in the employment concerned;
(c) employees whose employment is essentially intermittent;
(d) employees engaged in any work which for technical reasons has to be completed before the duty is over;
(e) employees engaged in a work which could not be carried on except at times dependent on the irregular action of natural forces.
(3) For the purposes of clause (c) of sub-section (2), employment of an employee is essentially intermittent when it is declared to be so by the appropriate Government on the ground that the daily hours of duty of the employee, or if there be no daily hours of duty as such for the employee, the hours of duty, normally include periods of inaction during which the employee may be on duty but is not called upon to display physical activity or sustained attention.


Minimum Wages Act, 1948
14:Overtime:
(1) Where an employee, whose minimum rate of wages is fixed under this Act by the hour, by the day or by such a longer wage period as may be prescribed, works on any day in excess of the number of hours constituting a normal working day, the employer shall pay him for every hour or for part of an hour so worked in excess at the overtime rate fixed under this Act or under any law of the appropriate Government for the time being in force, whichever is higher.
(2) Nothing in this Act shall prejudice the operation of the provisions of Section 59 of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948) in any case where those provisions are applicable.