Factories Act Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The duty to provide adequate and suitable washing facilities for the workers is in Section 42(1)(a) of the Factories Act, 1948, in the chapter on welfare. Washing facilities are to be provided and maintained separately for male and female workers.

The neighbouring welfare sections deal with other facilities: Section 43 with storing and drying of clothing, Section 44 with facilities for sitting, and Section 45 with first-aid appliances. So Sections 43, 44 and 45 are not the washing provision, though they are easily confused with it because they follow one another.

Answer: A

Chapter III of the Factories Act, 1948 deals with health, running from Section 11 to Section 20: cleanliness, disposal of wastes, ventilation and temperature, dust and fume, artificial humidification, overcrowding, lighting, drinking water, latrines and urinals, and spittoons.

Safety is the subject of Chapter IV, hazardous processes were added in a separate chapter by the 1987 amendment, and welfare is dealt with in Chapter V beginning at Section 42. So Health is the only heading that belongs to Chapter III.

Answer: C

Artificial humidification is dealt with in Section 15 of the Factories Act, 1948, in the chapter on health: where the humidity of the air is artificially increased, the water used must be of a standard of purity and the State Government may make rules on the process.

Section 19 deals with latrines and urinals, Section 25 with pressure plant, and Section 35 with protection of the eyes. They belong to the other chapters on health and safety and have nothing to do with humidification.

Answer: D

Neither conclusion follows. The statements are about the sections on weekly holidays, Section 52, and compensatory holidays, Section 53. The conclusions are about the daily hours of work of an adult worker, the nine-hour limit and the interval for rest, which are different provisions about daily hours and are not derived from the statements.

Hence both conclusions are unrelated to what the statements say, even if each is a rule found elsewhere in the Act. The option that only Conclusion I follows, only II follows, or both follow is therefore wrong.

Answer: C

All three pairs are correctly matched, so the answer is A, B and C. Section 18 of the Factories Act, 1948 deals with drinking water, Section 19 with latrines and urinals, and Section 14 with dust and fume. All three are in the chapter on health.

The options saying only C, only A or none of the above leave out correct pairs. Sections 14, 18 and 19 are not interchanged in the table, since each section number is matched to its own heading.

Answer: A

Only Conclusion I follows. Statement II says that Section 41A of the Factories Act deals with the Constitution of Site Appraisal Committees, which gives the committee's function, and Conclusion I states what the committee does: it examines an application for the establishment of a factory involving a hazardous process and makes its recommendation to the State Government.

Conclusion II states that the provisions on hazardous processes are in Chapter IVA. Statement I says only that the Act discusses hazardous processes, not in which chapter, so the chapter number is not derived from the statements and Conclusion II does not follow. The keyed answer is therefore that only Conclusion I follows.

Answer: C

The prohibition of overlapping shifts is in Section 58 of the Factories Act, 1948: work in a factory is not to be carried on by means of a system of shifts so arranged that more than one relay of workers is engaged in work of the same kind at the same time.

Section 55 deals with intervals for rest, which is a different rule on daily hours, and Sections 41 and 47 are in other chapters of the Act. Only Section 58 is headed prohibition of overlapping shifts.

Answer: A

The extra wages for overtime are provided in Section 59 of the Factories Act, 1948: where a worker works more than nine hours a day or forty-eight hours a week, he is entitled to wages at twice the ordinary rate for the overtime.

Section 55 deals with intervals for rest, and Section 61 with the notice of the period of work for adults. Section 65 is in the same chapter on working hours but concerns other matters, not overtime wages.