• To provide minimum wages to the workers working in organized sector
• To stop exploitation of the workers
• To empower the government to take steps for fixing minimum wages and to revising it in a timely manner
• To apply this law on most of the sections in organized sector (scheduled employment)

Minimum Wages Act, 1948 extends to whole of India.

Applicable to all employees engaged to do any work, skilled, unskilled manual or clerical, in a scheduled employment, including out-workers.

The appropriate government to fix minimum rates of wages

Minimum wage is fixed on ethical ground and not on economic ground. It does not consider either the value of work done by a worker or the capacity of the employer to pay. It is a bedrock minimum which must be paid to a worker.

Imprisonment up to 6 months or with fine up to Rs.500/-