Welfare Facilities in the Establishment
Chapter Forty-Nine
Syllabus topic 3.2, "Occupational Safety, Health and working conditions"
Pages 342 to 347 of 597
In one line
The employer must provide washing and bathing places, somewhere to keep clothes, seats for those who stand, a canteen at a hundred workers, first aid, a welfare officer at two hundred and fifty, an ambulance room at five hundred, and a creche at fifty.
In exam wording: section 24 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 makes the employer responsible for providing and maintaining such welfare facilities as the Central Government prescribes, including washing, bathing and locker facilities, clothes keeping and drying, sitting arrangements, a canteen where one hundred or more workers including contract labourers are ordinarily employed, medical examination in mines, and first aid; and empowers the Central Government to prescribe for ambulance rooms, motor transport amenities, rest rooms and lunch rooms, welfare officers, building workers' accommodation, and creches.
Why the law has this at all
Because a workplace is not only a place of risk; it is a place where people spend most of their waking hours.
The distinction between Chapter V and Chapter VI is worth drawing at the start of any answer, because MU's topic label runs the two together. Chapter V, section 23, is about not being harmed: air, light, water, latrines, effluent. Chapter VI, section 24, is about being able to live a decent working day: somewhere to wash, somewhere to eat, somewhere to sit, somewhere to leave a child.
That difference explains the structure of the two sections. Section 23 applies to every establishment alike. Section 24 is graded by size, because a canteen or an ambulance room makes sense at a scale that a washing place does not.
And section 24 carries the same social change that section 23 does: washing, bathing and locker facilities and rest rooms are required for male, female and transgender employees separately. It is the second place in the Code where the three way separation appears.
Some words this chapter uses
Locker room is a room with lockable storage for personal belongings. Ordinarily employed means employed in the normal course, not on an exceptional day. Operating centre and halting station are the depots and stops of a motor transport undertaking. Welfare officer is a designated officer responsible for the welfare functions the rules prescribe. Creche is a facility for the care of young children. Principal employer is the employer of the establishment for whose work a contractor engages labour.
Section 24(1): the eight facilities named in the Code
The employer shall be responsible to provide and maintain in his establishment such welfare facilities for the employees as the Central Government prescribes, including:
| Clause | Facility | Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| (i) | adequate and suitable facilities for washing, for male and female employees separately | none stated |
| (ii) | bathing places and locker rooms for male, female and transgender employees separately | none stated |
| (iii) | a place for keeping clothing not worn during working hours and for drying wet clothing | none stated |
| (iv) | sitting arrangements for all employees obliged to work in a standing position | none stated |
| (v) | canteen facilities | one hundred or more workers, including contract labourers, ordinarily employed |
| (vi) | in mines, medical examination before employment and at specific intervals | none stated |
| (vii) | adequate first-aid boxes or cupboards, contents readily accessible during all working hours | none stated |
| (viii) | any other welfare measure the Central Government considers required for a decent standard of life | none stated |
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