Occupational Safety, Health &
Working Conditions (Central)
Rules, 2026 — The Deep Dive

Every employer seeking registration applies electronically in Form-I on the ShramSuvidha Portal. The certificate of registration is issued in Form-III within seven days — and if it isn't, the establishment is deemed registered and the certificate auto-generates. This is the same Form-I / Form-III mechanism used across all four Labour Codes. The certificate is non-transferable and must be displayed conspicuously at every workplace premises.

Establishments already registered under any other central labour law must re-register on the portal within six months of the rules coming into force (i.e., by 8 November 2026). Late registration after 60 days attracts a fee to be specified by the Central Government.

Rule 6 prescribes the appointment letter format — mandatory for every employee in every establishment, no exceptions. The format has sixteen fields:

Rule 5 mandates annual health examinations, free of cost, for every employee in dock work and building or other construction work who has completed forty years of age. Medical certificates are issued in Form-VIII to both employer and employee.

Rule 7 prescribes the accident and dangerous-occurrence notification framework — one of the most operationally consequential sections of the entire rulebook:

• Fatal accident: inform the Inspector-cum-Facilitator forthwith in Form-XI. Simultaneously notify by telephone the Chief Inspector-cum-Facilitator, District Magistrate or Sub-divisional Officer, the jurisdictional police station, and the victim's family.
• Bodily injury causing 48+ hours of absence: inform in Form-XI within twelve hours after the forty-eight-hour period completes, electronically to the Inspector-cum-Facilitator.
• Dangerous occurrence (whether or not causing injury): intimation within twelve hours to both the Inspector-cum-Facilitator and the District Magistrate or Sub-divisional Officer.
• Death following a previously-reported accident: forthwith by telephone and electronically, confirmed in writing within twelve hours.

Dangerous occurrences include: bursting of pressure equipment, crane/derrick/winch collapse, explosion or fire or gas release, collapse of any building or structure, flooding at a mine, failure of ventilation systems. The full list runs to over twenty categories in Rule 7(4).

Rule 14: every establishment employing 500 or more workers must constitute a Safety Committee of equal employer and worker representatives (not exceeding twenty members total). Three-year tenure. Quarterly meetings at minimum — monthly in mines. The Central Government may specify varying thresholds for different classes of establishments.

Rule 15 prescribes the composition: a senior official as Chairman, a Safety Officer as Secretary, and representatives from production, maintenance and purchase departments on the management side. Worker representatives are chosen by workers — through secret ballot among workers where there is no registered trade union.

The fifteen-day action clock (Rule 14(5)): within fifteen days of receiving Safety Committee recommendations, the employer must take action to implement them. This is a hard operational deadline — not advisory.

Separate provisions for mines (Rule 16–17, with monthly meetings mandatory and a distinct composition requirement) and for dock/construction work (Rules 18–19, with Safety Officers required at establishments with 500+ workers or as notified).

Safety Officer qualifications (Rule 18–20): a degree or diploma in industrial safety from a recognised institution, or a degree in engineering/technology with at least two years of practical experience in occupational safety. In mines, the Safety Officer must hold qualifications prescribed under the Directorate General of Mines Safety.

This is the densest part of the rulebook — over forty rules prescribing health, safety and welfare standards across factories (Rules 22–48), mines (Rules 26–48), docks, building and other construction work, plantations, and motor transport undertakings. The rules are sectoral (different standards for different workplace types) but share a common structure.

Common welfare provisions (Chapter VI, Rules 49–63) apply across all sectors:

• Washing facilities, bathing places, locker rooms — separate for male, female and transgender employees (Rule 49–51).
• Canteen — at establishments with more than specified number of workers (Rule 53). Managed by a canteen managing committee with worker representation.
• First aid and ambulance room — first-aid boxes at prescribed ratio; ambulance room at factories, mines and construction sites with 500+ workers (Rules 54–55).
• Welfare Officer — mandatory at every factory, mine and plantation with 250–500 workers (one officer); one additional for every 500 workers beyond that. Where both men and women are employed, women welfare officers proportional to women workers. Must hold a post-graduate degree or diploma in social work, HRM or labour welfare (Rule 57).
• Crèche — at every factory, mine, construction site, industrial/agricultural/commercial/educational establishment, and plantation where more than fifty workers are ordinarily employed. Within 1 km of the workplace. Separate feeding arrangements for children under 15 months. Minimum 10 sq ft per child. Midwife-qualified woman attendant in charge; one ayah per ten children (Rule 58).
• Mock drills — mandatory across factories, mines, construction, and industrial establishments (Rule 59).
• Residential facilities and living accommodation for contract labourers and construction workers (Rules 61–62).

Rule 64: no worker shall be required or allowed to work more than forty-eight hours in a week. For transport vehicle workers, a maximum fifteen-minute interruption during which the vehicle is stopped is permitted without counting as rest.

Rule 65 (working journalists): a normal working day exclusive of meals is six hours (day shift) and five-and-a-half hours (night shift). Correspondents, reporters and news photographers are on duty from the time they enter duty until all assigned work is done — intervals of up to two hours between assignments are not counted as duty. Excess over thirty-six hours per week is compensated by rest the succeeding week in spells of not less than three hours.

Rule 66 (holidays for journalists and sales promotion employees): ten holidays in a calendar year. Earned leave at one day for every eleven days worked. Sick leave on half-pay at one-eighteenth of service. Casual leave at fifteen days per year, not combinable with other leave. Quarantine leave on full wages for up to twenty-one days (extendable to thirty in exceptional cases).

Rule 67 (weekly holiday): employer must post a notice — physical or electronic — at conspicuous places showing the weekly holiday.

Rule 69 (overtime wages): overtime is payable at twice the ordinary rate of wages. The computation follows the Code on Wages, 2019 methodology.

Rule 70 (restriction on double employment in mines): no worker may be employed in a mine while simultaneously employed in another mine, except in prescribed circumstances.

Rule 72 prescribes the registers every employer must maintain — employee register, wages register, overtime register, accident register, dangerous-occurrence register, leave-with-wages register. Electronic maintenance permitted throughout. Records preserved for five calendar years from the last entry. Entries in English, Hindi and the local language.

Wage slips in Form XVI — issued electronically to every employee on or before the day of payment. This obligation is cross-Code: the same requirement exists in the Code on Wages (Central) Rules (Rule 52, Form 5). One compliant wage slip satisfies both.

Annual return in Form XVII and Form XVIII — uploaded on the designated portal on or before 28/29 February following the end of each calendar year. On sale, abandonment or discontinuance of the establishment, a further return must be filed within one month (sale/abandonment) or four months (discontinuance).

Where registers are also maintained under the Code on Wages rules, the Wages Code registers are deemed compliant with the OSH Code requirements — no duplication needed (Rule 72(3)).

Rule 83 operationalises the Code's most politically significant provision — women may now be employed before 6:00 AM and beyond 7:00 PM in any establishment, subject to all eight of these conditions being met:

• (a) Written consent of the woman employee must be obtained.
• (b) No violation of maternity-benefit provisions under the Code on Social Security, 2020.
• (c) Adequate transportation — pick-up and drop to her residence.
• (d) Well-lit workplace — including passages to toilets, washrooms, drinking water, entry and exit. CCTV surveillance on the way to these facilities.
• (e) Safe, secure and healthy working conditions such that no woman employee is disadvantaged in connection with her employment.
• (f) Dedicated telephone numbers displayed conspicuously at the establishment and inside vehicles.
• (g) In belowground mines — not less than three women employees on duty at any place at any time.
• (h) POSH Act 2013 compliance — the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 must be fully complied with.

Rule 84 empowers the Central Government to declare, by notification, standards for safeguarding women employed in hazardous processes listed in the First Schedule to the Code.

The contract-labour chapter is one of the most operationally significant in the entire rulebook. Key provisions:

• Contractor qualification (Rule 85): the contractor must not be an undischarged insolvent or convicted of an offence with 3+ months imprisonment in the last two years.
• Licence conditions (Rule 86): hours of work per Code, wages per Code on Wages, and where contract labour works at the principal employer's premises — toilet, washroom, drinking water, bathing, changing room, first-aid, canteen and crèche are the principal employer's responsibility, not the contractor's. All other facilities are the contractor's responsibility.
• Application for licence (Rule 87): electronically through ShramSuvidha Portal in Form-XXI.
• Single multi-state licence (Rule 88): a contractor may obtain a single licence for multiple states or for the whole of India by applying in Form-XXI. State Government consultation required — but if no response within thirty days, the consultation is deemed complied with. Auto-generation: if the licence is not approved or disapproved within forty-five days, it is deemed approved and auto-generated.
• Licence validity: five years (Rule 88(6)).
• Security deposit and bank guarantee (Rule 90): required before licence issue. If the contractor fails to pay minimum wages, the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) can cause payment from the security deposit.
• Contractor wage responsibility (Rule 93–98): contractor must pay wages per the Code on Wages. Where the contractor fails to pay minimum wages, the principal employer becomes liable via the security deposit mechanism.
• Work order intimation (Rule 94): every contractor must, within fifteen days of receiving a contract work order, intimate details on the portal.
• Experience certificate (Rule 100): every contractor must issue an experience certificate on demand to every contract labourer.

Licence fees are scaled by headcount: up to 20 workers = ₹100; 21–50 = ₹200; 51–100 = ₹500; 101–200 = ₹1,000; 201–500 = ₹3,000; 501–1,000 = ₹5,000; 1,001–5,000 = ₹10,000; 5,001–10,000 = ₹20,000.

Three rules that operationalise the inter-state migrant worker welfare framework:

• Rule 102 (journey allowance): the employer pays a lump-sum amount covering to-and-fro fare by train (not less than II class sleeper), bus, or other passenger transport from the place of employment to the worker's residence in the home state. Payable once in twelve months. Eligibility: the worker must have worked for not less than 180 days in the preceding twelve months. If the worker changes employer mid-year and hasn't availed the allowance from the previous employer, the new employer pays — based on a certificate from the worker and combined service of 180+ days.
• Rule 103 (toll-free helpline): a toll-free number shall be provided through general or special order by the Director General Labour Welfare Organisation, Ministry of Labour and Employment, to address queries and safety of inter-state migrant workers.
• Rule 104 (studies): the Central Government may identify and commission studies to promote safety, health and welfare of inter-state migrant workers, in consultation with State Governments and expert organisations.

Rule 177 (manner of holding enquiry): when a complaint is filed by an Inspector-cum-Facilitator, the officer issues summons, records evidence on oath, allows cross-examination, and decides the complaint per the Code. Maximum three adjournments. Video-conferencing permitted at officer's discretion. Ex-parte proceedings if the accused fails to appear on two consecutive dates without sufficient cause.

Rule 178 (compounding of offences): the compounding procedure mirrors the Code on Wages and Social Security rules — electronic compounding notice, composition for compoundable offences, closure of the matter upon payment. For the OSH Code, the compounding form is Form-XXVI (Part A application + Part B certificate).

Rule 184 (contract-labour grievance redressal): contract labour may submit grievances relating to health, working conditions and wages at the level of the principal employer. A committee constituted by the principal employer (with contractor representation) must hear and dispose of the grievance within thirty days. If unresolved, the principal employer forwards the grievance electronically to the Inspector-cum-Facilitator, who ensures resolution within sixty days of receipt.

Rule 185 (annual increment for regular contractor workers): a worker regularly employed by a contractor, whose employment is governed by mutually accepted standards, shall receive an annual increment of not less than 2% of their wages.