The Factories Act, 1948

What it does

The Act regulated conditions of work inside a factory. It replaced the Factories Act, 1934. Its chapters dealt with the approval and licensing of factories, with the health of workers, with safety in the use of machinery and in dangerous operations, with welfare provisions such as canteens, crèches and rest facilities, and with working hours, weekly holidays, overtime and annual leave with wages. A chapter added after the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 dealt with hazardous processes.

A factory, for the Act, was premises where ten or more workers were employed with the aid of power, or twenty or more without power, and a manufacturing process was carried on. The occupier carried the main duties under the Act and a manager was named. Inspectors had powers of entry, inspection and prosecution.

The Act is a repealed instrument. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 repeals it on commencement, and the labour codes were brought into force on 21 November 2025. The page is about a statute that governs earlier periods, and pending matters, as the Code's savings provisions allow.

Who it binds

The occupier of a factory, who was the person with ultimate control over its affairs, and through the occupier the manager and the workforce. Enforcement was largely by State Governments and their factory inspectorates, and the States made their own Factories Rules under the Act, so details of forms, returns and licensing varied from State to State.

What moved out of it

The subject matter now sits in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. A factory under the Code is defined by its own thresholds, and the central and State rules made under the Code replace the Factories Rules.

What has changed, and when

The Act was amended many times, including after the hazardous processes chapter was added. Its replacement came when the labour codes commenced on 21 November 2025. One provision elsewhere still points back to it. Section 77(3) of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 limits the permission regime for the largest establishments to a factory, a mine or a plantation, each as defined in the Factories Act, 1948, the Mines Act, 1952 or the Plantations Labour Act, 1951. The firm's note on retrenchment, lay-off and closure observes that all three Acts are repealed by the Occupational Safety Code on its commencement, but that section 77(3) has not been updated to that Code's definitions.

What turns on it in practice

The point of practical importance is the 300-worker line. Under section 77(1) of the Industrial Relations Code, an establishment with not less than three hundred workers on an average per working day in the preceding twelve months, or such higher number as the appropriate Government notifies, is subject to the stricter permission regime for retrenchment, lay-off and closure. Whether the establishment is a factory is therefore a threshold question, and the Factories Act definition is where it begins. An office-based business, including most technology and services firms, is not an industrial establishment under that section however many people it employs, so the lighter provisions apply to it.

For historic matters, such as an inspection finding or a prosecution for a breach before 21 November 2025, the Act continues to supply the substantive rule as the savings provisions allow. A prospective compliance review should be done under the Code and its rules, and, because the States made their own, under the State rules.