Major Relief for Small Businesses: Tarunpreet Singh Sond
– Labour Minister introduced Key Amendments to the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958 and the Punjab Labour Welfare Act, 1965
Chandigarh, July 11:
In a significant move to promote ease of doing business and reduce compliance burden on small enterprises, Punjab Labour Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond has announced a series of progressive amendments to The Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958 and The Punjab Labour Welfare Fund Act 1965 in Punjab Vidhan Sabha, today.
The amendments (The Punjab Labour Welfare Fund Bill, 2025 and the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Bill 2025) aim to strike a balance between business facilitation and employee welfare.
Below are the key highlights:
1. To decrease the burden of compliances on small businesses and to provide ease of doing business. All establishments employing upto 20 workers will be exempted from all the provisions of the Act. However all such establishments will have to give information to the inspector with in six months of coming in to force of the act or start of business.
2. To improve the overall earning of the employees. The overtime in a quarter is being increased from 50 hours to 144 hours. Accordingly the spread over period of work in a day has been increased from 10 hours to 12 hours which includes interval for rest. However overtime at double the rate will have to be paid for hours beyond 9 hours a day and 48 hours a week.
3. Registration process has been streamlined by making a provision of deemed approval within 24 hours of the application for registration for establishments having 20 or more employees.
4. Only Information to be given by the establishments upto 20 employees.
5. The fine proposed in section 21 and 26 have been made realistic minimum from Rs 25 to Rs 1000 and maximum from Rs 100/- to Rs 30,000/-.
6. To avoid any harassment and to give time to improve on the compliances time of three months have been given between first and second offence and then subsequent offence.
7. As of now all employees of all the factories registered under the Factories Act are eligible for welfare schemes. It is proposed that highly paid employees who may not need or deserve the benefits of welfare schemes under the Act should be excluded. Therefore all those category of employees whose wages are regulated under the Payment of Wages Act 1936 are only proposed to be covered for the welfare schemes under this Act.
8. There is a proposal to simplify the procedure for settling claims of unpaid accumulations of the employees. This will reduce the cost and time of getting these claims processed which are often of meager amount. Further the unpaid accumulations are proposed to be made a source of funds for the Board in case they remained unclaimed for the period of one year.
9. There is a proposal to enhance the monthly contributions of employees from Rs 5 to Rs 10 per month and that from the employers from Rs 20 to Rs 40 per month. Also there is a proposal to make a provision to deposit this fund quarterly instead of biannually as per existing provision. This will improve the financial position of the Board and enable the Board to extend more benefits related to the schemes and reduce the work of filing returns for the establishments.
10. This is a proposal to introduce penalty for any violation or non-compliance of the provisions of the Act as there is no such provision for penalty in the present Act. This new provision will improve compliance on the part of employers.
Labour Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond stated that these amendments are designed with both the employers’ operational ease and workers’ welfare in mind. “Mann Government’s goal is to create a business-friendly ecosystem while ensuring just and fair treatment for employees. These reforms are a step forward towards that vision,” he added.
