Odisha Govt Increases Daily Working Hours From 8 To 12 To Compensate Lost Man-Hrs

Bhubaneswar: In order to make up for man-hours lost due to the lockdown, the Odisha government has decided to increase working hours by four hours per day.

“Following requests by industries to compensate lost man-hours due to Covid-19 lockdown, the state government has increased working hours by 4 hours from 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week to 12 hours per day and 72 hours per week with overtime pay (capped at 24 hours/week),” chief spokesperson of Covid-19, Subroto Bagchi, said during a press meet at Geeta Govinda Sadan here on Friday.

Following are the salient points of the government order:

a) No adult worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory for more than 12 hours any day and 72 hours in any week. The periods of work of adult workers in a factory each day shall be so fixed that no period shall exceed 6 hours and that no worker shall work for more than 6 hours before he has had an interval for rest of at least half an hour. The total spread-over shall not exceed 13 hours.

b) No female worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory between 7 pm and 6 am, unless specifically permitted by the government in this regard.

c) Additional four hours of overtime wages per day shall be paid as prescribed under Section 59 of Factories Act, subject to an overtime limit of 24 hours per week.

d) Other guidelines under Covid-19 to be observed scrupulously.