Unused leave exceeding 30 days will be compulsorily paid by employers under new labour laws

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

labour laws that are awaiting implementation will introduce a lot of changes for both the employer and the employee /worker. Some of the important changes/areas of impact will be: Lower take-home pay, higher contribution to the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) account, calculation of number of paid leave available in a calendar year and the maximum working hours in a week.

One of the labour laws — the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code — states that an employee cannot accumulate more than 30 days of paid leave in a calendar year.

If the accumulated paid leave due to an employee exceeds 30 days in a calendar year, the company (employer) will have to pay for the excess leave. In this case, 'employee' means those workers who are not in managerial or supervisory positions.

Here it is important to note that Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, the Code on Wages, Industrial Relations Code and the Social Security Code are awaiting a government notification for the date from when these new laws will be effective.

The new four labour laws have been passed by the parliament and notified by the government. They are only awaiting an effective date from which laws will come into effect.

Sowmya Kumar, Partner at law firm INDUSLAW, says, «Section 32 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSH Code), has a number of conditions with respect to availing annual leave, carry forward and encashment.

Section 32(vii) allows a worker to carry forward annual leave to a subsequent calendar year, up to a maximum of 30 days. In case at the end of the calendar year the annual leave balance exceeds 30, then the employee will be entitled to encash the excess leave and carry forward