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Minimum wages in Jammu & Kashmir are fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and notified by the Labour Department of the Union Territory. The governing notification is S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022, which remains in force. J&K notifies consolidated rates with no basic and dearness allowance split, operates no half-yearly VDA revision cycle, and applies a single schedule across the territory with no zone division.
The short answer Minimum wages in Jammu are ₹8,086 a month for unskilled work, ₹10,400 for semi-skilled, ₹12,558 for skilled and ₹14,352 for highly skilled, with administrative, ministerial and accounts staff at ₹11,674. The underlying notified daily rates are ₹311, ₹400, ₹483, ₹552 and ₹449 respectively, converted at 26 working days. The governing order is S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022 and it has not been revised since – J&K operates no periodic dearness allowance mechanism.
J&K notifies a consolidated daily rate per grade, so there is no allowance to add on. The monthly figure is the daily rate multiplied by 26 working days – ₹311 a day gives ₹8,086 a month for unskilled work. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate. Because no VDA mechanism operates, the notified figure does not drift upward between orders; it stays exactly where S.O. 513 set it until a fresh notification is issued.
The mistake to avoid: assuming Ladakh follows the same schedule. Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh were a single state until 31 October 2019 and payroll systems configured before the reorganisation often still treat them as one jurisdiction. Ladakh has had its own notification since S.O. 117 of 2 November 2022, at materially different rates.
Worked example – unskilled worker
Notified daily rate = ₹311 (consolidated, no VDA split)
Per month = 311 × 26 = ₹8,086
Per year = 8,086 × 12 = ₹97,032
Per hour at an 8-hour day = 311 ÷ 8 = ₹38.88
One overtime hour = 38.88 × 2 = ₹77.76
J&K uses the four standard skill grades and adds a separate category for administrative, ministerial and accounts staff, which sits between semi-skilled and skilled. That fifth category is the one employers most often miss, because office staff do not map cleanly onto the manual skill ladder.
Act on this: check your office and accounts staff against the administrative category rather than the manual ladder. At ₹11,674 a month it sits ₹1,274 above semi-skilled, and back-office employees placed on a generic staff band are the group most likely to be below the floor.
Minimum wages in Jammu & Kashmir apply to workers in the scheduled employments notified for the Union Territory, and coverage does not depend on headcount. Shops and commercial establishments, construction, horticulture and allied processing, handicrafts, transport, hospitality and services account for most covered employment. Contract workers are covered on the same footing as directly employed staff, with the principal employer liable where a contractor underpays.
Paying below the notified rate exposes an employer to recovery of the shortfall for the whole affected period, compensation on top, and prosecution. Under the Code on Wages, 2019 a first offence attracts a fine of up to ₹50,000, and a repeat offence within five years can mean up to three months imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹1 lakh. Claims reach back three years.
Act on this: in horticulture and construction, keep records continuous through seasonal peaks. J&K’s covered workforce concentrates heavily into the harvest and building seasons, and short-tenure workers hired for those windows are covered on exactly the same footing — and are the group most often missing from a wage register.
The Labour Department of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir fixes minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022 is the operative notification and remains in force. J&K does not notify a separate basic and dearness allowance split and does not operate half-yearly VDA revisions, so the schedule changes only when a fresh order is issued rather than drifting with inflation between them.
Act on this: because no VDA mechanism operates, a compliance calendar built around April and October checkpoints will find nothing to update in J&K – and that absence is not evidence the schedule is current. Check the Labour Department’s published orders directly at a fixed annual interval instead.
Notification position for minimum wages in Jammu & Kashmir.
| Effective From | Notification | Unskilled / Month | Highly Skilled / Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Oct 2022 | S.O. 513 | ₹8,086 | ₹14,352 |
| Since 2022 | No later revision identified; no VDA mechanism operates | — | — |
| Ladakh | Separate schedule under S.O. 117 dated 02 Nov 2022 | — | — |
Underlying notified daily rates are ₹311 unskilled, ₹400 semi-skilled, ₹483 skilled, ₹552 highly skilled and ₹449 for administrative, ministerial and accounts staff, converted at 26 working days. There is no statutory HRA component in the J&K minimum wage notification. Cross-verified against compliance-maintained datasets, July 2026. Always confirm against the official notification of the relevant State Labour Department before finalizing payroll.
Jammu & Kashmir notifies a comparatively low floor and, like several smaller jurisdictions, operates no periodic dearness allowance – so the schedule holds its 2022 level rather than tracking inflation. The five-grade structure, with a distinct administrative category, is its most useful feature for employers with mixed manual and office workforces.
Unskilled minimum wage per day, compared with other jurisdictions. Comparison figures are to be filled from each jurisdiction’s own notification.
| State / Benchmark | Unskilled / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Jammu & Kashmir (UT) | ₹311 | Consolidated ₹8,086 a month, five grades, no VDA mechanism |
| Ladakh — general areas | ₹450 | Consolidated daily rate under S.O. 117, separate schedule since 2019 |
| Himachal Pradesh | ₹490.38 | Consolidated ₹12,750 a month, no Basic/VDA split |
| Punjab | ₹518.69 | Consolidated ₹13,486 a month, eight categories |
| Chandigarh (UT) | ₹560 | Consolidated monthly rate, nine categories, no zone split |
| National Floor Wage | — | Advisory floor; where a state rate falls below it, the higher figure applies |
Act on this: hold Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh as separate rate masters. They were one state until 2019, the schedules diverged in late 2022, and Ladakh’s unskilled rate is ₹139 a day higher – a payroll system that still treats them as one jurisdiction will underpay in Ladakh.
The table below sets out minimum wages in Jammu & Kashmir under S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022. Rates are consolidated with no basic and dearness allowance split. The daily rate is the notified unit; monthly figures are derived at 26 working days and apply across the Union Territory with no zone division.
| Grade | Per Day | Per Month | Per Year | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unskilled | ₹311 | ₹8,086 | ₹97,032 | Consolidated, no VDA split |
| Semi-Skilled | ₹400 | ₹10,400 | ₹1,24,800 | Consolidated, no VDA split |
| Administrative / Ministerial / Accounts | ₹449 | ₹11,674 | ₹1,40,088 | Separate category for office staff |
| Skilled | ₹483 | ₹12,558 | ₹1,50,696 | Consolidated, no VDA split |
| Highly Skilled | ₹552 | ₹14,352 | ₹1,72,224 | Consolidated, no VDA split |
Source: Labour Department, Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir – S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022, still the in-force notification. Rates are consolidated with no basic and VDA split, and no half-yearly revision mechanism operates. There is no statutory HRA component. Cross-verified against compliance-maintained datasets, July 2026. Always confirm against the official notification of the relevant State Labour Department before finalizing payroll.
No. J&K notifies one schedule applying across the whole Union Territory, with no zone or divisional split between Jammu and Kashmir.
Because J&K applies one schedule across the Union Territory, the notified rate is the same in Srinagar and in Jammu, and the same again in Anantnag, Baramulla, Udhampur, Kathua and every rural block. An unskilled worker earns ₹311 a day or ₹8,086 a month wherever the workplace sits. What varies in practice is seasonality rather than geography – the Kashmir valley’s horticulture and construction work concentrates into a short window, and the Jammu division’s trade and transport employment runs more evenly through the year.
Under S.O. 513 dated 12 October 2022, minimum wages in Jammu are ₹8,086 a month or ₹311 a day for unskilled work, ₹10,400 for semi-skilled, ₹12,558 for skilled and ₹14,352 for highly skilled. Administrative, ministerial and accounts staff carry a separate rate of ₹11,674 a month.
No. J&K notifies consolidated rates with no separate basic and dearness allowance split, and operates no half-yearly VDA revision mechanism. The notified figure is the whole wage and it changes only when a fresh order is issued.
No. J&K applies one schedule across the whole Union Territory with no zone or divisional split, so Srinagar, Jammu and every district read the same figures. Grade is the only variable that changes the rate.
Yes. Administrative, ministerial and accounts staff carry their own category at ₹449 a day or ₹11,674 a month, sitting between semi-skilled and skilled. Office employees read from this line rather than being mapped onto the manual skill ladder.
No. Ladakh has been a separate Union Territory since 31 October 2019 and has its own notification, S.O. 117 dated 2 November 2022, at materially different rates. Payroll systems configured before the reorganisation often still treat the two as one jurisdiction, which underpays in Ladakh.
S.O. 513 took effect on 12 October 2022 and remains the in-force notification, with no later revision identified. Because no periodic dearness allowance operates, the schedule holds at that level rather than drifting upward, so the Central National Floor Wage comparison is worth running.
Alpesh Vaghasiya (CEO)
Alpesh Vaghasiya is the Co-founder and CEO of Superworks, a smart business management solution that Indian SMBs and large enterprises use to run attendance, payroll, and statutory compliance from a single system. He has spent over 15 years building software out of Surat, founding Artoon Solutions, now a 350+ person product engineering firm serving clients across 30+ countries, in 2009, before launching Superworks in 2020.
His writing comes from the operator's side of compliance - what actually breaks when payroll has to absorb a minimum wage revision, reconcile attendance across multiple sites, or file returns under different state rules in the same month. A Charter Member of TiE Surat and an active angel investor in early-stage Indian startups, he holds a B.E. in Computer Engineering from Gujarat University.
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