The Indian government is urging all states and Union Territories to finalise and publish their rules under the four new labour Codes by October 31, a critical step towards fully implementing the comprehensive labour law framework designed to streamline compliance and enhance worker welfare.
Key Points
- All states and UTs are expected to publish rules under the four labour Codes by October 31 to fully operationalise the new framework.
- Ten states have already published their rules, while others have released draft rules for consultation.
- The new labour Codes, which replaced 29 central labour laws, came into force in November 2025, consolidating provisions on wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety.
- A new Labour Stack model is being developed to integrate worker databases and government welfare schemes, with a pilot expected within 15 days.
- The government has approved 200 modern career lounges, with 40 becoming operational in FY27, to provide employment and career guidance.
The government expects all states and Union Territories (UTs) to publish rules under the four labour Codes by October 31, Labour Secretary Chandra Bhushan Kumar said on Thursday as the Centre steps up efforts to operationalise the new labour law framework.
Ten states have already published their rules, while the remaining states and UTs have put out their draft rules for consultation, Kumar said while addressing a seminar on the new Labour Codes by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Grant Thornton (GT) Bharat.
"I had a personal meeting with all the states and UTs, and we are hoping we will have the rules at the state level by October 31.
"So this is going to be a major, major exercise because the appropriate government in most of the cases where our industries operate and trade operates is the state government," Kumar said, launching a report by GT Bharat on the implementation of the labour Codes.
Operationalising the New Labour Framework
The four labour Codes, which replaced 29 central labour laws, came into force in November 2025, consolidating provisions on wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety and working conditions.
The Centre notified the rules under the Codes in May 2026, but their implementation also depends on states framing their own rules as labour falls under the concurrent list.
With several provisions requiring state-level rule-making to take effect in practice, the completion of state rules has emerged as a key step towards fully operationalising the new framework.
Impact on Compliance and Unsettled Areas
The report by GT said the new framework had substantially reduced the number of compliance requirements for employers.
The number of rules had fallen from 1,436 to 351, while the number of returns had been reduced from 31 to a single consolidated return.
Forms had declined from 181 to 73 and registers from 84 to eight.
However, the report flagged several areas where implementation remained unsettled, including the two-working-day requirement for payment of wages after specified forms of separation, with employers seeking clarity on whether it applied only to statutory wages or the entire full-and-final settlement.
Questions also remained around workforce classification, particularly because the codes did not define managerial, administrative, and supervisory roles, while the classification determined the application of provisions on working hours, overtime, leave and industrial relations, according to the report.
It also highlighted the need for further guidance on registration and contribution mechanisms for gig and platform workers as well as the implementation of social-security schemes.
Developing the Labour Stack Model
Separately, Kumar said the government was developing a Labour Stack model to bring worker databases and information on government welfare schemes onto an an integrated platform.
The objective was to allow different databases and schemes to "talk to each other", enabling the government to identify workers already receiving benefits, where gaps in social-security coverage existed and whether workers eligible for certain schemes were being left out, he said.
The system could also help assess whether workers receiving existing benefits needed additional or top-up support.
A pilot of the Labour Stack is expected within 15 days, after which the government planned to test the model in at least one state or UT before expanding it further, he noted.
The model was intended to bring together information across different categories of workers, with a particular focus on unorganised, gig, and platform workers covered under the Code on Social Security, and the government had already undertaken a data-matching exercise involving worker and welfare databases to understand existing coverage and identify gaps, said Kumar.
Expanding Career Guidance and Employment Services
The government has approved 200 modern career lounges to provide employment and career-related guidance, of which 40 are expected to become operational during the current financial year (FY27), Kumar said.
These will be in addition to the 407 career lounges already operating across the country.
The government's career lounges are employment facilitation centres that provide jobseekers with career counselling, information on job and skilling opportunities, and support in accessing employment-related services.
Kumar also urged industry to make greater use of the government's National Career Service (NCS) portal to post vacancies and connect employers with jobseekers, saying wider industry participation would help strengthen the platform's role in facilitating employment.
