Labor Codes India: Important steps towards labor reforms: Labor codes are expected to be fully implemented from April 1 next year. The ministry has started the process of implementing the rules under the notified law. The government notified four labor codes namely, Wage Code, 2019, Industrial Relations Code, 2020, Social Security Code, 2020 and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 on November 21.
Statement of Labor and Employment Minister
To implement any law, the government is required to notify rules under it. Before this, the Central and State Governments are required to publish the draft rules for public feedback before publishing them.
Labor and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, while addressing CII IndiaEdge 2025 on Wednesday, said that the draft rules under the four labor codes will be made public soon before they are published.
He said that earlier the central government and states had already made the draft rules public, but that was a long time ago. Now there is a need to make the draft in line with the present times. Before publishing the draft rules, the government will allow 45 days for public comments before finalizing them for notification, a senior official said. The official also said that the government aims to implement rules for the implementation of these four codes from the beginning of the new financial year i.e. from April 1.
There will be 8 hours working day for employees
The minister, while answering questions during a session at the conference, said that under the new codes the working hours for an employee is still eight hours a day. In this major labor reform, 29 existing labor laws have been made consistent and integrated into it.
Mandaviya said the new framework provides the employee with the option of ‘overtime’, which is an international practice. The minister also mentioned the government’s intention to meet the target of providing social security to 100 crore workers by March 2026. Currently it is Rs 94 crore. Social security coverage has increased from 19 percent in 2015 to more than 64 percent in 2025.
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