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Minimum wages in Puducherry are fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and notified by the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry. The Union Territory uses consolidated monthly wages by designation for shops and establishments, with no basic-plus-allowance split and no unskilled-to-highly-skilled ladder.
The short answer For shops and establishments, Puducherry notifies consolidated monthly minimum wages for an eight-hour day, listed against roughly 106 individual designations. These are grouped into general categories covering around fifty common roles, and special categories covering chemist and druggist shops, beauty parlours, optical shops, photo studios, diagnostic laboratories and boarding houses.
The governing order for shops and establishments is G.O.Ms.No.09/AIL/Lab/G/2024 dated 2 September 2024, effective from 20 September 2024. Consumer Price Index points for the dearness allowance calculation are declared separately by the Labour Department.
Puducherry notifies a consolidated monthly figure per designation, so for shops and establishments there is no basic-plus-VDA arithmetic. The notified wage is for an eight-hour working day. Convert to a daily rate by dividing the monthly figure by 26, and to an hourly rate by dividing the daily figure by 8. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate. Where a scheduled employment other than shops and establishments applies, check whether that schedule uses a basic-plus-DA structure instead.
The mistake to avoid: importing a Tamil Nadu rate card. Puducherry is geographically inside Tamil Nadu and shares its language and labour market, but it is a separate Union Territory with its own Labour Department, its own notifications and a different wage structure. Tamil Nadu rates have no application in Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe or Yanam.
How to read the Puducherry schedule
Step 1 – find the exact designation in the notification, not a skill category
Step 2 – check whether it sits in the general or the special category list
Step 3 – the notified figure is the whole monthly wage for an 8-hour day
Step 4 – per day = monthly ÷ 26 · per hour = daily ÷ 8
Step 5 – overtime = hourly × 2, on the full consolidated wage
Puducherry does not use the unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled taxonomy for shops and establishments. It lists designations individually – around 106 of them – and notifies a consolidated wage against each. That means classification here is a matter of matching the designation exactly rather than judging a skill level, and the practical risk shifts from misclassification to simply not finding the right row.
Act on this: before you set a rate, search the notification for the exact designation your appointment letter uses. If the title does not appear, find the closest notified designation by duties and record the reasoning in the employee file — that note is what you will be asked for in an inspection.
Minimum wages in Puducherry apply to workers in the scheduled employments notified by the Union Territory administration, and coverage does not depend on headcount. The Union Territory has four non-contiguous regions – Puducherry and Karaikal on the Tamil Nadu coast, Mahe within Kerala and Yanam within Andhra Pradesh – and the Puducherry notification governs all four, regardless of the surrounding state. Contract workers are covered on the same footing as directly employed staff, and the principal employer is liable where a contractor underpays.
Paying below the notified rate exposes an employer to recovery of the full shortfall for the 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: if you run establishments in more than one of Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam, confirm that your payroll applies the Puducherry notification to all four. Mahe sits inside Kerala and Yanam inside Andhra Pradesh, and payroll systems that assign rates by postal geography will silently pick the surrounding state.
The Labour Department, Government of Puducherry fixes and revises minimum wages for each scheduled employment in the Union Territory. For shops and establishments the governing order is G.O.Ms.No.09/AIL/Lab/G/2024 dated 2 September 2024, effective 20 September 2024, which notified consolidated monthly wages by designation. Consumer Price Index points used for dearness allowance calculation are declared by separate order – the Labour Department issued such an order dated 4 May 2026 – so the CPI declaration and the wage notification are two distinct documents to track.
Act on this: track two documents, not one. The wage notification sets the schedule and the periodic CPI declaration drives allowance calculation where a schedule uses one. Watching only the wage notification will make it look as though nothing has changed when the applicable figure has moved.
Notification history for shops and establishments in Puducherry.
| Effective From | Order | Dated | Structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Sep 2024 | G.O.Ms.No.09/AIL/Lab/G/2024 | 02 Sep 2024 | Consolidated monthly wages by designation, 8-hour day |
| CPI declaration | Labour Department order | 04 May 2026 | CPI points for DA calculation in the UT |
| Earlier periods | – | – | To be filled from the Labour Department archive |
Rate figures for individual designations are to be filled from the notification itself. The full schedule runs to roughly 106 designations across general and special categories and is published by the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry at labour.py.gov.in. A revision may have been notified since publication – verify before finalizing payroll.
Puducherry is structurally closer to Chandigarh than to the Tamil Nadu that surrounds it: a small Union Territory notifying consolidated figures rather than a basic-plus-allowance split. For an employer operating on both sides of the border, that means two entirely different rate masters, not two versions of the same one.
Structure comparison. Rate figures are to be filled from each jurisdiction’s own notification.
| State / Benchmark | Unskilled / Day | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| Puducherry (UT) | – | Consolidated monthly wage by designation, ~106 designations, 8-hour day |
| Tamil Nadu – Zone A | ₹540.15 | Basic ₹6,691 + DA ₹7,353 a month, four zones, annual revision |
| Chandigarh (UT) | ₹560 | Consolidated monthly rate, nine categories, no zone split |
| Goa – Zone A | ₹561.00 | Basic ₹412.00 + VDA ₹149.00 a day, two zones |
| Kerala | – | Basic + DA by scheduled employment |
| National Floor Wage | – | Advisory floor, not directly enforceable on employers |
Act on this: hold Puducherry as its own rate master, separate from Tamil Nadu. The two are interleaved geographically, staff often move between them, and a shared band will breach one side of the border.
Puducherry notifies consolidated monthly minimum wages by designation for shops and establishments, for an eight-hour working day. The structure is set out below; individual designation rates should be read from the notification, which runs to roughly 106 entries across general and special categories.
| 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, Government of Puducherry – G.O.Ms.No.09/AIL/Lab/G/2024 dated 2 September 2024, effective 20 September 2024, for shops and establishments. Rate figures marked – are to be filled from the notification, available at labour.py.gov.in. Other scheduled employments carry separate notifications.
Puducherry does not use lettered wage zones. What it does have is four geographically separate regions, which creates a different kind of complication.
The same notified schedule applies across all four regions of the Union Territory. An establishment in Puducherry town, one in Karaikal, one in Mahe and one in Yanam all read from the same designation list, and no region carries a loading or a discount. The practical risk is not that the rate differs between them but that a payroll system assigns rates by geography and picks Kerala for Mahe or Andhra Pradesh for Yanam. Check that all four regions map to the Puducherry rate master.
For shops and establishments, Puducherry notifies consolidated monthly minimum wages by designation for an eight-hour day, covering roughly 106 designations across general and special categories. The governing order is G.O.Ms.No.09/AIL/Lab/G/2024 dated 2 September 2024, effective 20 September 2024, published by the Labour Department, Government of Puducherry.
Not for shops and establishments. Puducherry notifies rates against individual designations rather than skill grades, so you match the job to a named designation in the schedule rather than judging a skill level. Other scheduled employments in the UT may use a different structure.
No. Puducherry is a separate Union Territory with its own Labour Department and its own notifications, even though Puducherry and Karaikal are surrounded by Tamil Nadu. Applying a Tamil Nadu rate card in Puducherry is a common error and does not satisfy the Puducherry schedule.
The Puducherry notification applies in all four regions — Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. Mahe sits inside Kerala and Yanam inside Andhra Pradesh, but neither surrounding state’s schedule governs them. Payroll systems that assign rates by postal geography will get this wrong unless it is set explicitly.
The notified figure is a consolidated monthly wage for an eight-hour day. Divide by 26 for the daily rate and by 8 for the hourly rate. Overtime is twice the ordinary hourly rate, calculated on the full consolidated wage rather than on any notional basic component.
The Labour Department revises the wage notification periodically and separately declares Consumer Price Index points used in dearness allowance calculation — an order of that kind was issued on 4 May 2026. Track both documents, because the CPI declaration can move the applicable figure without a fresh wage notification appearing.
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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