Road Transport Workers Ordinance, 1961

This 1961 Ordinance sets minimum working conditions for people who work on road transport vehicles in Pakistan, such as drivers, conductors, cleaners, and checkers. It applies across the whole country and covers age limits, working hours, rest periods, leave, and record-keeping obligations for employers.

Section 3 sets minimum ages: eighteen years for most road transport workers, and twenty-one years for drivers. Section 3A, added later, requires employers to give every worker a written order specifying the terms of their employment, transfer, or promotion. Section 4 limits hours of work — no more than five hours at a stretch without at least a half-hour break, no more than eight hours a day, and no more than forty-eight hours a week, with at least twenty-four consecutive hours of rest each week. Overtime is capped at one hundred fifty hours a year and must be paid at double the normal hourly wage.

Section 6 entitles a worker who has completed a year of continuous service to at least fourteen days of paid leave, or seven days after six months of service. Section 6A grants twelve days of paid festival holidays a year, and Section 6B grants ten days of paid casual leave a year, which cannot be carried forward. Section 7 extends certain protections of the West Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968 — including gratuity — to road transport workers, subject to conditions on how many people the service employs.

Sections 8 and 9 require employers to keep registers of hours worked, leave taken, and rest intervals, and to make these available for inspection by government-appointed inspectors. Section 11 sets penalties for violations: a fine of up to one thousand rupees for a first offence, and imprisonment up to six months plus a fine up to one thousand rupees for repeat offences; falsifying records under Section 8 carries a separate penalty of imprisonment up to six months or a fine up to five hundred rupees, or both.

This is an older law that has been amended multiple times (notably by the Road Transport Workers (Amendment) Act, 1975), as shown by the numerous footnotes in the extract. Given its age, readers should verify current wage rates, leave entitlements, and penalty amounts against the up-to-date official text, since some figures set decades ago may no longer reflect current practice.