The Rajasthan government on Monday tabled a Bill in the Assembly allowing women to work in factories before 6 am and after 7 pm, subject to certain conditions around their consent and safety.
Cabinet Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Sumit Godara, tabled the Factories (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2025, to amend the Factories Act, 1948 (a Central Act), in its application to the state of Rajasthan.
Officials said that the Central government has issued a Compliance Reduction and Deregulation docket for the state, seeking revision in working hours limit for factory workers. Hence, it is considered necessary to amend the Factories Act, 1948 “to increase the maximum production capacity of factories and allow factory occupier to create more jobs and to ensure presence of workers to work or supervise machines or processes as required.”
“The proposed Bill also provides the increased presence of women in the labour force and enables them to contribute more to the economy and to enhance their own earnings and to benefit women aspiring for jobs in remunerative industries which are regularly operating night shifts, subject to their written consent with safeguards,” officials said.
The Bill states that “women shall be entitled to be employed in all factories for all types of work and they may also be employed, with their written consent before 6 am and beyond 7 pm, subject to such conditions relating to safety and security measures or safeguards, holidays and working hours or any other condition, to be observed by the occupier, as may be prescribed.”
The Bill also empowers the state government to extend the daily maximum hours of work to up to ten hours — up from nine hours — inclusive of interval for rest, in a day, subject to a maximum of 48 hours in a week. On intervals for rest, the Bill proposes that the government may extend the total number of hours of work of a worker, without an interval, to six hours.
The Bill also proposes to increase the maximum limit for potential working hours or spread-over time to 12 hours, inclusive of intervals for rest, in a day. It also states that instead of a maximum 75 hours in a quarter, the worker shall be allowed to work overtime for up to 144 hours.
