Factory

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 now defines factory in Section 2(1)(w): any premises including the precincts where twenty or more workers are working, or were working on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is carried on with the aid of power; or where forty or more workers are working, or were working, and a manufacturing process is carried on without the aid of power. The Code repeals the Factories Act, 1948 (Section 143), which earlier defined the term in Section 2(m) with lower worker thresholds.

Three elements must be present: premises with their precincts, the minimum number of workers, and a manufacturing process carried on in any part of the premises. Manufacturing process is defined widely in Section 2(1)(zi) to include making, altering, repairing, finishing, packing, washing, cleaning, breaking up or otherwise treating any article. Explanation I counts all workers in different groups and relays in a day. Explanation II provides that installing a computer or electronic data processing unit does not make premises a factory if no manufacturing process is carried on.

The definition excludes a mobile unit belonging to the armed forces, a railway running shed and a hotel, restaurant or eating place. A proviso preserves the worker numbers fixed by a State law in force before the Code, until amended. The person with ultimate control over the affairs of the factory is the occupier (Section 2(1)(zs)).

Other labour codes use their own definitions, so read the term in the statute before you. Section 2(32) of the Code on Social Security, 2020 counts ten employees with power and twenty without, while Section 2(n) of the Code on Wages, 2019 refers back to the Factories Act definition. Article 24 of the Constitution separately prohibits employing a child below fourteen years in any factory.