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Minimum wages in Lakshadweep are fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and notified by the Labour Department of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep Administration, headquartered at Kavaratti. Rates are notified per scheduled employment rather than as a single statewide schedule, and within each employment they are set against the four standard skill categories.
The short answer Lakshadweep notifies minimum wages per scheduled employment – harbour works and related island employments among them – using the four standard skill categories of unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled, as defined in the Schedule to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Because the Union Territory publishes rates by employment rather than in one consolidated table, employers must identify the scheduled employment their establishment falls under before reading a rate. Current figures should be taken from the applicable notification of the Lakshadweep Administration.
Once the correct scheduled employment and skill category are identified, the notified figure is the wage floor. Where a rate is notified daily, the monthly equivalent is the daily figure multiplied by 26; where it is notified monthly, the daily figure is the monthly rate divided by 26. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate of wages. Because Lakshadweep is a small Union Territory with a limited set of scheduled employments, the practical first step is confirming which schedule applies rather than which skill band does.
The mistake to avoid: assuming Kerala rates apply. Lakshadweep is administered from Kavaratti as a separate Union Territory with its own Labour Department and its own notifications. The islands sit off the Kerala coast and the administrative and commercial links run through Kochi, which makes it easy to import a Kerala rate card – and a Kerala notification has no application in Lakshadweep.
How to read the Lakshadweep schedule
Step 1 – identify the scheduled employment your establishment falls under
Step 2 – find the current notification for that employment
Step 3 – place each worker in one of the four skill categories
Step 4 – read the notified rate for that category
Step 5 – monthly = daily × 26 · overtime = ordinary hourly rate × 2
Lakshadweep applies the four standard skill definitions set out under the Minimum Wages Act framework. These are the same definitions used across most Indian jurisdictions, and they turn on the degree of independent judgment the work requires rather than on qualifications held or job titles given.
Act on this: record the skill category and the scheduled employment together against each worker. In a small territory with few establishments, an inspection is thorough rather than sampled, and a register that names the employment schedule alongside the category answers the first two questions before they are asked.
Minimum wages in Lakshadweep apply to workers in the scheduled employments notified by the Union Territory Administration, and coverage does not depend on headcount. The territory comprises ten inhabited islands, with the administrative headquarters at Kavaratti, and the same notification applies across all of them. Contract workers are covered on the same footing as directly employed staff, and the principal employer carries the liability 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: keep the applicable notification on file at each island establishment rather than centrally. Inter-island travel in Lakshadweep depends on shipping and weather, and producing a document held on another island is not a practical answer to an inspector standing in front of you.
The Labour Department of the Lakshadweep Administration fixes and revises minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, notifying rates for each scheduled employment in the Union Territory. Revisions follow the same statutory framework applied nationally – the appropriate government reviews and revises rates at intervals not exceeding five years, with dearness allowance adjustments where the schedule provides for them. Because Lakshadweep publishes a comparatively small number of notifications, tracking them is manageable, but they are less widely republished than mainland state notifications.
Act on this: subscribe to or periodically check the Lakshadweep Administration’s official publications rather than relying on national compliance aggregators. Small Union Territories are the jurisdictions most often carried stale in third-party rate databases, sometimes by years.
Notification history for minimum wages in Lakshadweep.
| Effective From | Scheduled Employment | Skill Categories | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| – | Notified scheduled employments in the UT | Unskilled, Semi-Skilled, Skilled, Highly Skilled | – |
| – | Harbour works and allied employments | Unskilled, Semi-Skilled, Skilled, Highly Skilled | – |
| – | Earlier revisions | – | – |
Effective dates and rate figures are to be filled from the notifications of the Lakshadweep Administration. Because the Union Territory notifies per scheduled employment rather than in one consolidated schedule, verify the notification applicable to your establishment before finalizing payroll.
Lakshadweep is the smallest jurisdiction in this comparison by workforce, and like other small Union Territories it notifies by scheduled employment rather than publishing a single consolidated schedule. For a mainland employer operating an island site, that means sourcing the specific notification rather than reading a rate off a state table.
Structure comparison. Rate figures are to be filled from each jurisdiction’s own notification.
| State / Benchmark | Unskilled / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Lakshadweep (UT) | – | Notified per scheduled employment, four standard skill categories |
| Puducherry (UT) | – | Consolidated monthly wage by designation, ~106 designations |
| Chandigarh (UT) | ₹560 | Consolidated monthly rate, nine categories, no zone split |
| Kerala | Basic + DA by scheduled employment | |
| Goa – Zone A | ₹561.00 | Basic ₹412.00 + VDA ₹149.00 a day, two zones |
| National Floor Wage | – | Advisory floor, not directly enforceable on employers |
Act on this: hold Lakshadweep as its own rate master even if your only presence there is a single site. A territory with one establishment on your books is exactly the one that gets left on a stale rate when everything else is updated.
| Category Group | Coverage | Structure | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| General categories | Around 50 common commercial designations — managerial, clerical, sales, stores, drivers, security, helpers and general workers | Consolidated monthly wage per designation, 8-hour day | – |
| Special – chemist & druggist | Pharmacists, chemists, compounders | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
| Special – beauty parlours | Hair dressers, beauticians and assistants | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
| Special – optical shops | Optical mechanics, grinders and related roles | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
| Special – photo studios | Photographers, photo artists and assistants | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
| Special – diagnostic labs | Laboratory technicians, radiographers, X-ray photographers | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
| Special – boarding houses | Room boys, attenders and related hospitality roles | Consolidated monthly wage per designation | – |
Source: Labour Department, Union Territory of Lakshadweep Administration, Kavaratti – notifications under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Rate figures marked — are to be filled from the notification applicable to the relevant scheduled employment.
Lakshadweep does not use wage zones. What shapes compliance instead is the scheduled employment and the practical geography of a territory spread across ten inhabited islands.
The same notified schedule applies across the whole Union Territory. An establishment in Kavaratti, one in Agatti and one in Minicoy all read from the same notification for their scheduled employment, and no island carries a loading or a discount. The practical difficulty is not that the rate differs but that notifications and compliance documents need to be held locally on each island, because inter-island movement depends on shipping schedules and weather rather than on a road journey.
Lakshadweep notifies minimum wages per scheduled employment under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, using the four standard skill categories of unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled. Current rate figures should be taken from the notification applicable to your scheduled employment, published by the Labour Department of the Lakshadweep Administration at Kavaratti.
No. Lakshadweep is a separate Union Territory with its own Labour Department and its own notifications. The islands sit off the Kerala coast and administrative links run through Kochi, which makes importing a Kerala rate card a common error — but Kerala notifications have no application in Lakshadweep.
The four standard categories. Unskilled covers simple duties needing little or no independent judgment; semi-skilled covers routine work of limited scope where others take the important decisions; skilled covers work needing considerable independent judgment and thorough trade knowledge; highly skilled adds supervision of skilled employees.
No. The same notification applies across all ten inhabited islands — Kavaratti, Agatti, Amini, Andrott, Kadmat, Kalpeni, Kiltan, Chetlat, Bitra and Minicoy. There is no per-island rate and no urban or rural split.
Where a rate is notified daily, multiply by 26 for the monthly equivalent; where it is notified monthly, divide by 26 for the daily figure. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate of wages, derived by dividing the daily rate by the hours in the normal working day.
Yes. Contract workers are entitled to the same notified rate as directly employed staff in the same scheduled employment and skill category. Where a contractor pays below the floor, the principal employer is liable for the shortfall, and an agreement at a lower figure is void to that extent.
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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