Total days in a month for daily waged workmen (30 days or 26 days)

Hi all,

While calculating the wages of daily wage workers, should we pay for 30 days or 26 days in a month in J&K?

Section 23 of the J&K Minimum Wages Act states that one day of rest should be provided after six working days, and the wages for that rest day should be paid. This implies that 30 days' wages should be paid. However, under Central rules, the total days payable are 26. It is clarified that when determining the Minimum Wages based on the Market Index Price, the wages for the rest day are already factored into the daily wage rate. Therefore, the total days in a month should be 26 days.

Please advise.

Thanks & regards,
Jaisingh Thakur

Dear Jaisingh,

Since the number of days in the months of any calendar year is not the same, for the purpose of uniformity in calculation, a month is construed to comprise of 30 days only. It is purely a matter of approximation. As per any law relating to employment, 6 consecutive days of work have to be followed by a holiday on the 7th day. Therefore, when minimum wages are fixed by the appropriate government at a daily rate, the wages for the day of the weekly holiday are also included. That's why we find the explanatory note in the G.O. that to arrive at the daily rate, the monthly wages should be divided by 26 and to arrive at the monthly rate, the daily wages should be multiplied by 30.

If a daily wager works consecutively beyond 26 days in the same month, it means that he works by proportionately losing his holidays and therefore, his daily wage rate has to be multiplied by the actual number of days he worked.