INDIA · STATE · WORKING TIME
Working hours rules in Punjab
What the Shops and Establishments Act applicable in Punjab sets for daily and weekly hours, spread-over, rest intervals, overtime and night-shift work — the rules that govern employers in Mohali, Ludhiana, Amritsar. Every value below links to the source it was verified against.
- Governing Act
- Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958 (Punjab Act 15 of 1958), as amended by Punjab Act 12 of 2025 — gazetted 29 August 2025 and in force from publicationuncomplycate.com ↗
- Maximum daily hours
- 10 hours (s.7(1), raised from 9 by the 2025 amendment)uncomplycate.com ↗
- Maximum weekly hours
- 48 hours (s.7(1), unchanged)uncomplycate.com ↗
- Spread-over limit
- 12 hours (s.8(2), raised from 10 by the 2025 amendment)uncomplycate.com ↗
- Rest interval
- At least half an hour after no more than 5 hours of continuous work (s.8(1)); watchmen and guards exceptedblinkvisa.com ↗
- Overtime rate
- Twice the normal hourly wage (s.7(2) proviso (b)); “normal wages” means basic plus allowances and excludes bonusblinkvisa.com ↗
- Overtime cap
- 144 hours in any one quarter (s.7(1), raised from 50 in 2025). “Quarter” is defined in s.2(xxi-a) as three months from 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 Octoberuncomplycate.com ↗
- Weekly off
- Close day is every Sunday unless the Government fixes another (s.10(1)); no employee may work on the close day or on one day in a week (s.11). Three national holidays plus three festival holidays, at double wages if worked (s.12)blinkvisa.com ↗
- Women on night shifts
- s.30(1) prohibits women working at night (“night” defined in s.2(xvii) as ≥12 consecutive hours including 8pm–6am). Exemption is granted case by case under the scheme notified 3 March 2022, conditional on at least five women per night shift, security and transport, POSH compliance and annual self-defence trainingSources disagree: the scheme's own conditions still cite 9 hours a day and 50 overtime hours a quarter, which the August 2025 amendment supersededcomplinity.com ↗Secondary source
- IT/ITES exemption
- The IT-specific exemption (Notification 21/134/2001-5Lab II/86 of 8 January 2002) ran for two years only and appears to have lapsed around January 2004 with no renewal found. A separate blanket exemption from ss.9 and 10(1) for 365-day opening was renewed annually only up to 31 May 2021; no later renewal was founddatocms-assets.com ↗
Notes on Punjab
- →Since 29 August 2025 the Act applies only to establishments employing 20 or more workers; smaller ones are subject to s.13-A intimation alone. For many small firms this matters more than the hours change.
- →The widely circulated PRS PDF titled “Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958” is in fact the Haryana adaptation — its s.1(2) extends to Haryana. Punjab has no IT/ITES proviso in Rule 15; that provision is Haryana's.
Verify before you rely on it. State rules are amended by notification, exemptions for IT/ITES establishments are often time-bound and renewed separately, and the Labour Codes continue to be brought into force state by state. This page records what we could verify against a named source at the time of writing — it is general information, not legal advice, and it does not replace reading your state's current rules or asking your compliance advisor.
Keeping to these limits in practice
Limits are only enforceable against a record. Workclave captures every work session with its start, stop and breaks, applies your workspace's shift and break rules, and produces the statutory attendance register from the same data — so daily, weekly and overtime totals are computed as work happens rather than reconstructed at month end. Multi-state employers can configure rules per workspace.
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