Yes. Section 43 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 entitles women to be employed in all establishments for all types of work, and to work before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m. with their consent, on conditions the appropriate government prescribes. There is no exemption to apply for. What a Tamil Nadu site has to do is meet the conditions in the rules, and two sets of rules are in play.
What section 43 actually says
It is written as an entitlement, not a permission. The whole of it is one sentence:
Women shall be entitled to be employed in all establishments for all types of work under this Code and they may also be employed, with their consent before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m. subject to such conditions relating to safety, holidays and working hours or any other condition to be observed by the employer as may be prescribed by the appropriate Government.
That wording reverses the old position rather than relaxing it. Section 66(1)(b) of the Factories Act 1948 barred women from working between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., and a State could shift the window only as far as 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. by notification. The Madras High Court struck the provision down in Vasantha R. v. Union of India, holding that the only factor prohibiting a woman from a night shift was sex, and that this offended Articles 14, 15 and 16 [VERIFY: reported at (2001) II LLJ 843 Mad, judgment dated 8 December 2000; read via a judgment aggregator, not an official portal]. The Code now writes the entitlement into the statute, and section 44 keeps a separate power for the government to require safeguards before women are employed on a hazardous or dangerous operation.
The practical reason a plant cares is the size of the pool it recruits from. The Periodic Labour Force Survey annual report for 2025 puts the female labour force participation rate for persons aged 15 and above at 40.0%, against 79.1% for men, with rural female participation at 45.9%. A roster that cannot start before 6 a.m. or run past 7 p.m. for half the applicants is drawn from the smaller of those two numbers.
The conditions, Centre and Tamil Nadu side by side
The conditions live in the rules, not in the Code, so the operative list depends on who the appropriate government is. For a private factory or warehouse in Tamil Nadu that is the State, and the State's rules exist only in draft. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules 2026, notified as G.S.R. 345(E) on 8 May 2026, bind central-sphere establishments; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Tamil Nadu) Rules 2022 were published for objections in G.O. Ms. No. 38 dated 11 April 2022 and appear not to have been finalised [VERIFY: whether Tamil Nadu has since notified final rules]. Both were drafted from the same template, and the differences are the interesting part.
| Condition | OSH (Central) Rules 2026, r.83 | Tamil Nadu draft rules 2022, r.42 |
|---|---|---|
| Consent | Of the woman employee, taken in writing (r.83(a)) | Of the woman employee; the draft does not say in writing (r.42(1)) |
| Transport | Adequate facilities to pick up and drop her at her residence (r.83(c)) | Same (r.42(3)) |
| Lighting | Workplace and the passage to toilet, washroom, drinking water, entry and exit to be well-lit (r.83(d)) | Same wording (r.42(4)) |
| Facilities nearby | Toilet, washroom and drinking water near the workplace (r.83(d)) | Same (r.42(5)) |
| CCTV | Suitable closed-circuit television surveillance on the way to those facilities (r.83(d)) | Not required by the draft rule |
| Emergency contact | Dedicated telephone numbers displayed at the establishment and inside the vehicles (r.83(f)) | Not required by the draft rule |
| Sanitary facilities | Not in r.83; sits in the general welfare rules for all establishments | Napkins to BIS standards, free and replenished daily, lidded disposal bins, disposal by electrical incinerator (r.42(6), (7)) |
| Maternity | No employment against the maternity provisions of the Social Security Code 2020 (r.83(b)) | Same (r.42(2)) |
| Working conditions | Safe, secure and healthy, so no woman is disadvantaged in connection with her employment (r.83(e)) | Same (r.42(8)) |
| POSH | Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013 complied with as applicable (r.83(h)) | Same (r.42(9)) |
| Minimum women on shift | Only for below-ground mines: not fewer than three at any place (r.83(g)) | No minimum in the draft rule |
Two things are worth reading twice. The Central rule is the stricter of the pair on three points a site has to budget for: consent in writing, CCTV on the route to the facilities, and emergency numbers posted inside the transport vehicle as well as on the floor. The Tamil Nadu draft is the more specific on sanitary provision, down to the incinerator. A site that builds to the stricter of the two lists has less to redo if and when the final Tamil Nadu rules are notified, which is a sequencing argument rather than a compliance opinion.
The old Tamil Nadu roster rule, and whether it survived
The condition most Tamil Nadu plants remember is in neither list. Rule 84B(6) of the Tamil Nadu Factories Rules 1950 required the occupier to ensure that women on a night shift were not fewer than ten, that they were not less than two-thirds of the total strength of workers on that shift, and that one-third of the supervisors, shift in-charge or foremen were women [VERIFY: rule number and wording taken from a search result; the Tamil Nadu Factories Rules were not opened]. That is a roster-composition rule, and it is why a plant that wanted two women on a night line was told it needed ten.
Those rules were made under the Factories Act 1948, which section 143(1)(a) of the OSH Code repealed with effect from the Code's commencement on 21 November 2025, notified as S.O. 5321(E) [VERIFY: notification number]. The Code does not simply delete what was made under the repealed Acts. Section 143(3) provides that anything done or any action taken under them, "including any rule, regulation, bye-laws, notification, nomination, appointment, order or direction made thereunder", is deemed to have been done under the corresponding provisions of the Code and "shall remain in force to the extent they are not contrary to the provisions of this Code till they are repealed by the Central Government".
Who owes what when the women are contract workers
Split the list in two, because it does not all sit with the same party. Consent and transport attach to the employer of the worker, which for contract labour is the contractor. The facilities attach to the site, and the Code says so directly: section 53 provides that the welfare facilities specified under sections 23 and 24 "shall be provided by the principal employer of the establishment to the contract labour who are employed in such establishment".
That is not a drafting detail. Adequate lighting, potable drinking water and separate latrine and urinal accommodation are section 23 items; washing facilities, sitting arrangements, first-aid boxes and the canteen are section 24 items. Almost everything the night-shift rules describe as a condition of the workplace is therefore the principal employer's to provide for the contractor's women, not the contractor's. A contractor cannot light the client's passage to the toilet block, and a work order that assumes otherwise is describing something that will not happen.
- Consent, per worker, on file with the contractor and available to the site. The Central rule requires it in writing; the Tamil Nadu draft does not say so. Written is the version that can be produced later.
- Name the transport in the work order. Who books the vehicle, who pays for it, what the route is, who holds the driver's details. Rule 83(c) and draft rule 42(3) both require a drop at the residence, not at a pick-up point.
- Count contract heads against the canteen threshold. Section 24(1)(v) sets it at one hundred or more workers "including contract labourers" ordinarily employed. The contract crew counts toward the site's obligation, not the contractor's.
- Emergency numbers go inside the vehicle. Rule 83(f) puts them in the transport as well as at the establishment. On a contract deployment the vehicle is usually the contractor's and the numbers are usually the site's.
- POSH is decided by its own Act. Both rule sets require compliance "as applicable"; which Internal Committee a contract worker on the floor complains to is settled by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013, not by the OSH rules [VERIFY: the split between contractor and principal employer under that Act was not researched for this post].
- The twelve-hour gap still applies. Section 30 bars a worker from a factory if they have already worked in another such establishment in the preceding twelve hours, and a night shift is where that turns up. The contractor's attendance record is the only place it can be checked.
Which of these the contract actually places on the contractor is a drafting question, and the site's own counsel decides it. What is set out above is the Code's default, not a reading of any particular agreement.
What to settle before the first night shift
Most of this is decided weeks before anyone clocks in, and most of it is about who is responsible for what rather than about the shift itself.
- Which rule set the site is building to, and why. A Tamil Nadu private-sector site is under the State's rules; until those are notified, the Central list is the only finalised one to work from.
- Whether rule 84B(6) is being treated as live. The answer changes the roster rather than the facilities, and it is the one question worth putting in writing to the Labour Department.
- The lighting survey: the floor, the passage to the toilets, washrooms and drinking water, and the entry and exit gates. All four are named in both rules, and the last three are usually the ones that fail after dark.
- The transport arrangement, priced and named, including what happens when a shift overruns and the booked vehicle has gone.
- The consent forms, held by the employer of each worker, with the contract crew's held by the contractor and producible on the day.
- A walk of the route a woman actually takes from the gate to her workstation at 11 p.m., done at 11 p.m. The rules describe that route; a daytime inspection does not test it.
Sources
- Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (Act 37 of 2020), Gazette text hosted by DGFASLI — s.43 (employment of women), s.44 (dangerous operations), ss.23 and 24 (health and welfare facilities), s.30 (double employment), s.53 (principal employer's liability for welfare facilities), s.143(1)(a) and s.143(3) (repeal and savings). Opened and read.
- Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Central) Rules, 2026, G.S.R. 345(E) dated 8 May 2026, Gazette of India Part II s.3(i) — r.83 (conditions for employment of women at night, clauses (a) to (h)), r.84 (dangerous operations). Opened and read from a mirrored copy of the Gazette [VERIFY: against the e-Gazette original].
- Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Tamil Nadu) Rules, 2022 (draft), G.O. Ms. No. 38, Labour Welfare and Skill Development (H2), 11 April 2022, Tamil Nadu Government Gazette Extraordinary No. 216 — draft r.42 (conditions for employment of women before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m., clauses (1) to (9)), draft r.43 (safety of women in manufacturing processes). Opened and read. Draft only.
- Ministry of Labour and Employment, FAQs on the OSH Code, 2020 (January 2026) — Q4: women's right to work a night shift "with the safeguard of adequate safety, transport, and security arrangements", with consent described as mandatory; Q11 on hazardous occupations. Opened and read.
- Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025 (January to December 2025), PIB release — LFPR in usual status (ps+ss) for persons aged 15 and above: 59.3% overall, 79.1% male, 40.0% female, rural female 45.9%. Opened and read.
- Tamil Nadu Factories Rules, 1950, r.84B(6) — minimum of ten women on a night shift, two-thirds of shift strength, one-third of supervisors [VERIFY: taken from a search result; the Rules themselves were not opened, and their status after the repeal of the Factories Act 1948 is the open question in this post]
- Ministry of Labour and Employment notification S.O. 5321(E) — commencement of the OSH Code on 21 November 2025 [VERIFY: read via secondary reporting; the Gazette copy was not opened]
- Vasantha R. v. Union of India, Madras High Court [VERIFY: (2001) II LLJ 843 Mad, judgment dated 8 December 2000; read via a judgment aggregator rather than an official portal]