Annual Health Check-ups and Crèche Facilities

Trigger table: who qualifies, who pays, and what is still left to rules

The Code names several health and welfare facilities, but fixes some triggers in its own text while leaving others to be prescribed by rules or notification. This table separates the two so you can see, for each facility, what bites now versus what waits on government rules.

All entries reflect the statutory text only. No worked figures are assumed in this table. Items marked rule-dependent are set by the appropriate Government or by Central Government rules, not by the Code itself.

The rule in plain words

The OSH Code places two separate duties that HR teams often confuse. The first sits in Section 6, the employer's duties provision. Among those duties, the employer must provide an annual health examination or test, free of cost, to employees of the age or class that the appropriate Government prescribes, and to the class of establishments it prescribes. The Code fixes two things firmly: the examination is free, and it is the employer's responsibility. It deliberately leaves the exact qualifying ages and classes to be filled in by rules.

Section 6 also carries a blanket no-charge rule. No charge can be levied on any employee for anything done or provided to maintain safety and health at the workplace, including the conduct of a medical examination and any investigation meant to detect occupational diseases. So wherever a check-up falls under the health and safety duties, the worker never pays and the cost cannot be passed through as a wage deduction.

The crèche duty sits elsewhere, in Section 24, which lists welfare facilities the employer is responsible to provide and maintain. Section 24(3) deals specifically with a crèche: a suitable room or rooms for the use of children under the age of six years, in establishments where more than fifty workers are ordinarily employed, at a suitable location and distance. The Code sets that worker trigger and the under-six age itself, and then lets the Central Government make the detailed rules around the room, location and distance.

A worked scenario for a staffing firm

Take an illustrative example. A manpower firm ordinarily deploys 60 workers at a client site. The number 60 is an assumed input used only to show how the trigger works; the real statutory line is more than fifty workers ordinarily employed.

Because the site crosses that line, the Section 24(3) crèche trigger is met, so a crèche for children under six years is due. Since the Code leaves the room, location and distance specifics to Central Government rules, the firm has flexibility on how to meet it: set up its own crèche, use a common crèche run by a government body, a municipality, a private entity or an NGO, or pool resources with other establishments to run a shared crèche.

For the annual health examination, suppose the appropriate Government later prescribes that workers aged 45 and above receive a yearly test. The figure 45 and above here is purely illustrative, used to show how the duty would apply once a rule names a qualifying age. The Code itself sets no age. Under that assumed rule, the qualifying workers would get the test free, and the firm could not deduct its cost from their wages or charge them for it.

Exceptions and fine print

• The annual examination is not automatically universal. It applies to the age or class of employees, and the class of establishments, that the appropriate Government prescribes. Until those rules name the ages and classes, exactly who qualifies is defined by the appropriate Government, not by the Code.
• Who the appropriate Government is changes the rule-maker. Under Section 2, for most factories, motor transport undertakings and plantations it is the concerned State Government, while for central-authority establishments, railways including metro, mines, major ports, air transport, telecom, and central public sector undertakings it is the Central Government. The health-examination rule follows whichever is the appropriate Government for that establishment.
• Some thresholds expressly count contract labour and some do not. The canteen facility clause, for instance, counts contract labourers in its worker count. The crèche clause speaks of workers ordinarily employed without that express rider, so read each trigger on its own words rather than assuming one head-count fits all facilities.
• The crèche can be shared. An establishment is not forced to build its own. It may avail a common crèche facility of the Central or State Government, a municipality, a private entity or an NGO, or a group of establishments may pool their resources to set up a common crèche in the manner they agree.

What an employer must do

• Identify the appropriate Government for each establishment and track the rules it prescribes for the annual health examination, specifically the qualifying age and class, since those values come from the rules and not the Code.
• Provide the annual health examination free. Never deduct its cost from wages, and never levy any charge on an employee for a medical examination or for investigation to detect occupational diseases.
• Count the workers ordinarily employed at each establishment. Where that number is more than fifty, arrange a crèche for children under six years, whether your own, a common crèche, or a pooled arrangement with other establishments.
• Keep first-aid boxes or cupboards stocked and readily accessible during all working hours, and provide an ambulance room where more than five hundred workers are ordinarily employed in a factory, mine, or building or other construction work.
• For mines, run a medical examination before employment and repeat it at the intervals the rules specify, since the Code states specific intervals but does not fix them.

What a worker can do

• Ask whether your establishment ordinarily employs more than fifty workers, which is the trigger for a crèche for children under the age of six.
• Refuse any deduction or fee for a safety or health medical examination. The Code bars charging an employee for anything done to maintain safety and health, including medical examination and occupational-disease investigation.
• If you fall in the age or class that the appropriate Government has prescribed, expect the annual health examination at no cost to you.
• Check who the appropriate Government is for your workplace, because that is the body whose rules decide who qualifies for the free examination.

Crèche: own, common, or pooled

The Code is deliberately flexible on delivery. Section 24(1) makes the employer responsible to provide and maintain welfare facilities, and Section 24(3) adds that the Central Government may make rules for the crèche itself. The proviso to Section 24(3) then opens three practical routes: run your own crèche, avail a common crèche provided by a government body, municipality, private entity or NGO, or join with other establishments to pool resources for a shared crèche on agreed terms.

For staffing and manpower businesses spread across many client sites, the pooling and common-crèche routes matter, because they let several establishments meet the under-six crèche obligation together rather than each building a separate facility. The detailed specifications for the crèche room, its location and its distance are to come through Central Government rules, so the operational design should be checked against those rules once notified.

Frequently asked questions