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Minimum wages in Manipur are fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and notified by the Labour Department, Government of Manipur. The state applies four standard skill categories across scheduled employments, with VDA linked to the Consumer Price Index. Rate figures should be taken from the current notification rather than third-party compilations.
The short answer Manipur notifies minimum wages against the four standard skill categories – unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled – for the scheduled employments listed by the state government under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Rates are administered by the Labour Department at Imphal, with dearness allowance adjustments linked to Consumer Price Index movement. Because published secondary figures for Manipur diverge, the operative rate for your scheduled employment should be read from the notification itself before it is applied to payroll.
Identify the scheduled employment your establishment falls under, place each worker in one of the four skill categories, and read the notified rate. Where a rate is notified daily, the monthly equivalent is the daily figure multiplied by 26; where it is notified monthly, divide by 26 for the daily figure. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate. Where the schedule provides for a dearness allowance on top of a basic rate, both components must be applied – the basic alone is not the wage.
The mistake to avoid: working from a national comparison table rather than the notification. Rate aggregators covering all 36 states and union territories update the large states first and the small ones last, and a figure for Manipur carried from an earlier cycle will look authoritative while being out of date. Source the notification.
How to apply the Manipur schedule
Step 1 – confirm the scheduled employment your establishment falls under
Step 2 – place each worker in one of four categories: unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled or highly skilled
Step 3 – read the notified basic rate and add any applicable dearness allowance
Step 4 – monthly = daily × 26 · overtime = ordinary hourly rate × 2
Step 5 – cross-check against the Central National Floor Wage, which prevails if higher
Manipur applies the four standard skill definitions used across most Indian jurisdictions. Classification follows the nature of the work actually performed rather than the designation on the appointment letter or the qualifications the worker holds, and it must be revisited whenever a role’s duties change permanently.
Act on this: record the skill category against each worker in the register alongside the scheduled employment. In a state where the covered workforce is concentrated in small establishments, an inspection tends to be thorough rather than sampled, and a register that names both answers the first two questions before they are asked.
Minimum wages in Manipur apply to workers in the scheduled employments notified by the state government, and coverage does not depend on headcount. Shops and commercial establishments, construction, handloom and handicraft units, transport, hospitality and services account for most covered employment. Contract workers are covered on the same footing as directly employed staff, and where a contractor pays below the notified rate the principal employer carries the liability. Any agreement to accept less is void to that extent.
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, and the burden of showing that the correct wage was paid rests with the employer.
Act on this: keep wage records continuous through periods of disruption. Where operations are interrupted and dues are settled informally, the gap in the register is what a later claim is built on – and under the reversed burden of proof, an absent record is treated much like an absent payment.
The Labour Department, Government of Manipur fixes and revises minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Under the statutory framework the appropriate government reviews and revises rates at intervals not exceeding five years, with dearness allowance adjustments linked to Consumer Price Index movement between full revisions. Manipur publishes its notifications departmentally rather than through the national compliance press, so revisions often reach employers late if they are being tracked through secondary sources.
Act on this: set a calendar reminder to check the Labour Department’s published notifications at fixed intervals rather than waiting for a circular to arrive. In jurisdictions that do not feature in the compliance press, an absence of news is not evidence that nothing has changed.
Notification structure for minimum wages in Manipur.
| Component | Basis | Notified By | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic rate by skill category | Minimum Wages Act, 1948; reviewed at intervals not exceeding five years | Labour Department, Government of Manipur | – |
| Dearness allowance | Linked to Consumer Price Index movement | Labour Department, Government of Manipur | – |
| Scheduled employments | As notified by the state government | Labour Department, Government of Manipur | – |
Rate figures are to be filled from the current notification of the Labour Department, Government of Manipur. Published secondary figures for the state diverge between sources and should not be relied on for payroll. Where a notified rate falls below the Central National Floor Wage, the higher floor applies.
Manipur is a small jurisdiction with its covered workforce concentrated in shops, construction, handloom and handicraft units, transport and services. Structurally the schedule is straightforward – four skill categories, no zone split – which puts the whole of the compliance question on classification and record-keeping rather than on geography.
Structure comparison. Manipur figures are to be filled from the current notification; comparison figures are to be filled from each state’s own notification.
| State / Benchmark | Unskilled / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Manipur | – | Four skill categories, notified by scheduled employment |
| Meghalaya | ₹541 | Single daily rate inclusive of VDA, no zones, 29 scheduled employments |
| Assam | – | Base + CPI-linked VDA, four skill categories, no zones |
| Sikkim | ₹500 | Four skill categories, reported position from the 2022 revision |
| Goa – Zone A | ₹561.00 | Basic ₹412.00 + VDA ₹149.00 a day, two zones |
| National Floor Wage | – | Advisory floor; where a state rate falls below it, the higher figure applies |
Act on this: do not treat the North Eastern states as one wage region. Meghalaya folds VDA into a single daily figure, Assam keeps base and allowance separate, and Manipur runs its own schedule – a shared regional band will breach somewhere.
Minimum wages in Manipur are notified against four skill categories for the scheduled employments listed by the state government. The structure is set out below; current rate figures must be read from the notification applicable to your scheduled employment.
| Skill Category | Basis of Classification | Structure | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unskilled | Simple duties, little or no independent judgment or prior experience | Notified rate, with DA where the schedule provides | – |
| Semi-Skilled | Routine work of limited scope performed under supervision | Notified rate, with DA where the schedule provides | – |
| Skilled | Considerable independent judgment, thorough knowledge of the trade | Notified rate, with DA where the schedule provides | – |
| Highly Skilled | Technical depth plus supervision of skilled employees | Notified rate, with DA where the schedule provides | – |
Source: Labour Department, Government of Manipur – notifications under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Rate figures marked – are to be filled from the notification applicable to the relevant scheduled employment. Published secondary figures for Manipur diverge between sources and are not reproduced here.
Manipur does not operate a lettered zone structure of the kind used in Goa, Tamil Nadu or West Bengal. Rates are notified against skill category for each scheduled employment.
Manipur notifies minimum wages by scheduled employment and skill category rather than by city, so there is no separate Imphal rate. Establishments in Imphal East and Imphal West, in Thoubal, Bishnupur and Churachandpur, and in the hill districts all read from the same schedule for their scheduled employment. For employers running sites across the valley and the hills, the practical priority is holding the applicable notification locally at each site rather than only at head office, since producing a document from elsewhere is not a workable answer to an inspection.
Manipur notifies minimum wages against four skill categories — unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled — for the scheduled employments listed by the state government under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Because published secondary figures diverge, the operative rate for your scheduled employment should be read from the Labour Department notification itself.
The Labour Department, Government of Manipur, at Imphal, under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Notifications are published departmentally rather than through the national compliance press, so revisions often reach employers late if they are being tracked through third-party sources.
No. Manipur does not operate a lettered zone structure. The variables that change the applicable rate are the scheduled employment the establishment falls under and the skill category the worker sits in, not the location of the workplace within the state.
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, 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.
Where a state-notified rate falls below the Central National Floor Wage, the higher figure applies. Running that cross-check is worthwhile in any jurisdiction where revisions are infrequent or hard to track, and it costs nothing to do before payroll is finalised.
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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