Navigating Labor Office Registration: Do Small Offices with Contractors Need It Across Different Indian States?

Dear All,

If a company is registered under Shops & Establishments and its offices are in different states of India, and all offices are registered with local offices under Shops & Establishments themselves. The company does not have more than 5 staff in any office. However, they have 5-9 contracted employees, but in total, do not have the capacity of 15 employees, including contractors. Should the company be registered with the Labor office? Does this rule vary in different states or not?

Please advise with the copy of laws/notifications if available with you. Please help me to come out from this.

Regards,
Santosh

Dear Santosh,

According to your brief, you are running different offices at different places, and as such, you are not engaged in any manufacturing activity. You have already obtained registration certificates for your various offices from different states of India. I do not think you need to obtain any further registration from the Labor Office, but you must be careful regarding the renewal of these registration certificates. You have also not clarified your doubts about registration from the labor office. Even if you have fewer than ten contractor employees/workers, you are not required to have a registration certificate under the Contract Labour (R&A) Act, 1970.

Submitted as requested.

Regards,

R.N. Khola

The appropriate authority under the Shops and Establishment Act itself is the Labour Officer. That means, if you are covered by the Shops Act, you are required to get an RC from the Labour Officer (Asst. Labour Officer as per the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act), and the same is the license to run the establishment with at least one employee. No more registration is required.

If you employ at least 20 employees through a contractor, you have to obtain a license from the Labour Department as per the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. Since you have less than 20 contract employees, that also is not required.

Regards,
Madhu.T.K

Please tell me when the last date for filing annual returns in the labor office is. Also, what documents do we need to submit along with Form U and the holiday list? Kindly tell me.