Section 22 of the OSH Code carries two duties, and only one of them waits for anybody. The safety officer is owed the moment you cross the line for your kind of establishment, wherever you are. The committee arrives only when your government asks, and it already has for mines, ports, railways and the rest of the central sphere. If you are a factory, your State decides that half. This pack is ten formats, the appointment letter and the committee resolution among them.
Ten formats, from the worksheet to the records that prove you ran it.
Fill it before anything else. It counts workers the way section 22(2) counts them, ordinarily employed rather than present on the day, and tells you which of the four limbs you are on. For a factory that is five hundred, or two hundred fifty where a hazardous process is carried on.
With the eleven statutory duties attached as a schedule rather than summarised in a sentence, so the appointment and what the person actually does cannot drift apart later.
Three year tenure, a meeting at least every quarter and monthly in a mine, and fifteen days for you to act on what it recommends. Where the workers choose their own representatives, women must hold a share of those seats not less than their share of the workforce. It sits alongside the grievance committee and is a different body with a different trigger.
Rule 19(k) wants a bound paged book, or a retrievable and non-editable electronic form. A spreadsheet anybody can overwrite is neither, and that is the sentence most EHS teams have never read.
Six routes, and any one is enough: an engineering degree with two years supervising, a physics or chemistry degree with five, an engineering diploma with five, a recognised qualification in industrial safety, or either of the two rule 18(3) adds for five years in a government department or in accident prevention. They cover dock work and construction. A mine is rule 20(2) instead, which wants a Certificate of Competency from the DGMS.
Every threshold turns on how many workers are ordinarily employed. Attendo keeps that number, and the attendance behind it, in one place.
Because it is filed next to a duty that does wait. Section 22 puts the Safety Committee and the safety officer in the same section, and the committee genuinely is conditional: the appropriate Government may, by general or special order, require it. Guidance reads the first sub-section, decides the whole section waits for a notification, and misses that the second says the employer shall also appoint. One of the four labour codes quietly created an appointment duty that nothing has to switch on.
The second reason is that there is no single number to remember. Four thresholds sit in one sub-section and they are not close together: five hundred for a factory, two hundred fifty where that factory carries on a hazardous process, two hundred fifty for building or other construction work, and one hundred for a mine. An employer who has heard five hundred and is running a hazardous process at three hundred workers is two hundred over the line, not two hundred under it.
The third is that the test is not the number anybody keeps. Section 22(2) says workers ORDINARILY employed. That is not the peak, it is not the headcount the day an inspector arrives, and it is not everyone whose name appears in a contract of employment that year. Nothing in the Code defines it further, so the honest answer is to write down how you counted and why, and keep it.
And the fourth is that the detail lives somewhere else. Section 22(2) leaves the number of officers, their qualifications and their duties to be prescribed by the appropriate Government. The OSH (Central) Rules, 2026 prescribe all three, but only for dock work, building or other construction work and mines. For a factory they prescribe nothing at all, because a factory is State sphere. The duty is still yours; the numbers are your State's.
Three things this page does not say. It does not say what your State has prescribed, because no State rules were read for this pack. It does not say the duty waits for your State to prescribe something: section 22(2) says shall, and a State that has not yet set a number has left you to appoint at least one and to be able to justify it, which is a different thing from permission to appoint nobody. And it does not say every mine is inside the Code: rule 108 lifts it off prospecting and minor mineral mines, limestone and ordinary sand among them, and the file gives the conditions. Where you are registered decides which government is yours, so check that alongside your own registration.
Section 22(2) sets them by the kind of establishment, and rule 18 adds a fifth for dock work that the section does not list.
| Establishment | Safety officer owed at | Committee owed at | Central scale | Test | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Factory | 500 workers | 500, if central sphere | None prescribed centrally | Ordinarily employed | s.22(2)(a) |
| Factory, hazardous process | 250 workers | 500, if central sphere | None prescribed centrally | Ordinarily employed | s.22(2)(b) |
| Building or construction | 250 workers | 500, if central sphere | 1 up to 500, then more | Ordinarily employed | s.22(2)(c), r.18 |
| Mine | 100 workers | 500, and meets monthly | 1 up to 500, then more | Ordinarily employed | s.22(2)(d), r.20 |
| Dock work | 500 workers | 500, if central sphere | 1 up to 1,000, then more | Ordinarily employed | rule 18(1)(a) only |
Where a factory owes a safety officer, and where the Safety Committee arrives for establishments the Centre governs. Two different duties from two different provisions that happen to share a number, which is part of why they get confused.
Source: OSH (Central) Rules, 2026, rule 14(1), with s.22(2)(a) of the OSH Code for the officerThe line people miss. A factory carrying on a hazardous process owes an officer at two hundred fifty, not five hundred, and so does building or other construction work. A mine owes one at a hundred. The number that applies to you depends on what you are, not on how big anybody else is.
Source: OSH Code, 2020, s.22(2)(b), (c) and (d)Section 94 is a general penalty for any contravention of the Code or the rules. Not less than two lakh rupees, extending to three lakh, and a further two thousand for every day it continues after conviction. Section 22 is not carved out of it. The pack adds the half most guidance leaves out: how it is actually imposed, and that it can be compounded.
Source: OSH Code, 2020, s.94, general penalty for offencesThe Safety Committee is, under section 22(1). The safety officer is not. Section 22(2) says the employer shall also appoint, and nothing has to be ordered first. Guidance that lumps them together gets the officer wrong in the employer's favour, which is the expensive direction.
A factory carrying on a hazardous process owes an officer at two hundred fifty, construction at two hundred fifty, a mine at one hundred. Four numbers, one sub-section. The one that applies is decided by what kind of establishment you are.
Section 22(2) says workers ordinarily employed. Not the headcount when an inspector arrives, and not a seasonal peak. Write down how you counted and over what period, because that note is the only thing that will answer the question a year later.
Rule 15(1) gives the chair to a senior official who can contribute effectively, and makes the safety officer the secretary. One person in both seats removes the point of having a committee at all, the same way a grievance committee carried entirely by one side does.
Rule 14(5) gives the employer fifteen days from receiving the committee's recommendations to act on them. Minutes that record a recommendation but not the date it was received make that impossible to evidence, which is why the pack has a register with receipt as a column of its own.
Rule 18 prescribes numbers for dock work and construction, rule 20 for mines. Nothing prescribes them for a factory, because a factory is State sphere. Use the central scale as a yardstick and read your own State's rules for the answer, the way a multi-site employer has to for every other prescribed figure.
One page, one job title
Ten formats, worksheet and letter included
Every threshold turns on workers ordinarily employed. Attendo keeps that count and the register behind it in one place.
Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) is payroll and attendance software used by 40,000+ businesses across manufacturing, corporate offices, retail, hospitals and education. This template is one of the free HR downloads we publish, each built from the gazette rather than from other templates.
Ten formats, the appointment letter and the committee resolution among them, in editable Word. Free, and no card.
