New Delhi, Nov. 21 -- The Centre on Friday rolled out four new labour codes that extend basic social security and minimum wage guarantees to over 400 million workers across the formal and informal sectors. Further, the codes include provisions such as equal pay for women, gratuity for fixed-term employees after one year, free annual health check-ups for workers above 40 years, double wages for overtime, and full health security for workers in hazardous sectors.

The codes replace a labyrinth of 29 fragmented laws, a statement by the labour ministry said, calling it a significant effort to modernise archaic laws. Some of these laws date back to the colonial and immediate post-Independence era (1930s-1950s), in a world that was "fundamental...