Section 1: Short title, extent, commencement and application

(1) This Act may be called the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. [(2) It extends to the whole of India ***].

(3) It shall come into force on such date5 as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.

(4) It applies in the first instance to the payment of wages to persons employed in any [factory, to persons] employed (otherwise than in a factory) upon any railway by a railway administration or, either directly or through a sub-contractor, by a person fulfilling a contract with a railway administration [, and to persons employed in an industrial or other establishment specified in sub-clauses (a) to (g) of clause

(ii) of section 2].

(5) [Appropriate Government] may, after giving three months‟ notice of its intention of so doing, by notification in the Official Gazette, extend the provisions of [this Act] or any of them to the payment of wages to any class of persons employed in [any establishment or class of establishments specified by [appropriate Government] under sub-clause (h) of clause (ii) of section 2]: [Provided that in relation to any such establishment owned by the Central Government no such notification shall be issued except with the concurrence of that Government.] [(6) This Act applies to wages payable to an employed person in respect of a wage period if such wages for that wage period do not exceed [twenty four thousand rupees] per month or such other higher sum which, on the basis of figures of the Consumer Expenditure Survey published by the National Sample Survey Organisation, the Central Government may, after every five years, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify.]