Ease of doing business: Telangana govt allows 10-hr workdays for commercial establishment. Here's what changes for you…

Workers tied to commercial establishments in Telangana may have longer work weeks to look forward to, as the state government has announced a new policy permitting up to 10 hour workdays, according to an ANI report.

The policy is subject to specific labour safeguards to ensure the protection of workers, and comes as Telangana aims to improve the ease of doing business, and offer greater flexibility to businesses, the report added.

Here's what Telangana government rules state:

• The new policy outlines that the total working hours for an employee must not exceed 48 hours in a week.
• The government has mandated that any work performed beyond the 48-hour weekly limit must be compensated with overtime wages.
• If an employee works for more than six hours in a single day, they are entitled to take a rest break of 30 minutes.
• The total work duration in a day, including overtime, must not exceed 12 hours under any circumstance.
• The maximum overtime is capped at 144 hours per quarter.

India Inc, pushes for increased work hours

Notably, various industrialists and CEOs in India have been advocating for increased work hours and debating over how much more work hours is needed, to much public blowback. But, there have also been some on the opposite side of the spectrum, advocating instead for work-life balance and quality of work vs quantity.

Earlier this year, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra joined in on the work hours debate, noting that quality of work is more important, than the quantity of work.

On the other side, Infosys' co-founder Narayana Murthy and Larsen & Toubro Chairman SN Subrahmanyan took the brunt of public trolling and criticism for suggesting that Indians should work 70 hour and 90 hours each week, respectively.

Tamil Nadu's 4-day work week experiment

In April 2023, the Tamil Nadu Assembly also passed the Factories (Amendment) Act 2023, which extended working hours for factory workers from eight to 12-hour daily.

However, the government assured that the total working hours in a week would remain unchanged for workers, and instead they would have the option to work for four days in a week and avail of three days of leave.

Notably, several countries, particularly in Europe are experimenting with or have adopted a four-day workweek.

(With inputs from ANI)