Employees Cost of Living (Relief) Act, 1974

This Act required employers to pay lower-wage employees a "cost of living allowance" on top of their normal wages, introduced in a series of stages between 1973 and 1986 to help offset inflation. Section 3 lays out successive tiers added by amendment: an employee earning up to seven hundred and thirty-five rupees a month was entitled to thirty-five rupees a month extra if wages did not exceed seven hundred rupees, or enough to top wages up to seven hundred and thirty-five rupees (sub-section 1, from 1973). Later amendments added further allowances for wages up to one thousand one hundred rupees (1974), a flat twenty-five rupees a month (1975), forty rupees a month for wages up to one thousand five hundred rupees (1980 and 1981), and later percentage-based wage increases of 13.5% (1985) and 18% (1986) for the same wage band - each new allowance could be set off against similar cost-of-living relief already granted under industrial relations awards or agreements. Section 3A (added 1992) let the Federal Government notify further allowances for specific areas going forward.

Section 2 defines "undertaking" broadly to include shops and establishments, construction sites, factories, mines, road transport services, and newspaper establishments, while excluding employees already covered by a separate government cost-of-living relief scheme. Section 7 makes the allowance count as part of an employee's "wages" for calculating provident fund, gratuity, bonus, and overtime pay, though a proviso excludes it from the definition of wages for specific purposes such as the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923.

Section 9 penalizes an employer who contravenes the Act with simple imprisonment up to six months, or a fine up to two thousand rupees, or both, and Section 10 requires a formal complaint by an aggrieved employee, union officer, or authorised person before a court can take up a case.

This is a 1970s-1980s law built entirely around historical rupee wage thresholds that have not been updated for decades, so it is very likely obsolete for current wage levels. The specific figures quoted here should be treated as historical rather than as guidance for present-day pay.