This article will guide you through all the provisions of salary law in Nepal.
Salary law in Nepal is guided by Muluki Civil Code 2074.
A wage is monetary compensation (or remuneration, personnel expenses, labor) paid by an employer to an employee in exchange for work done. Payment may be calculated as a fixed amount for each task completed (a task wage or piece rate), at an hourly or daily rate (wage labor), or based on an easily measured quantity of work done.
Types of Salary
Subsistence Salary:– The wage that can meet only the bare physical needs of a worker and his family is called subsistence wage.
Minimum Salary: It provides not only for bare physical needs but also for the preservation of efficiency of workers plus some measure of education, health, and other things.
Fair Salary: Fair wages is an adjustable step that moves up according to the capacity of the industry to pay, and the prevailing rates of wages in the area of industry.
Living Salary: A living wage is that which workers can maintain health and decency, a measure of comfort, and some insurance against the more important misfortune of lying.
Salary Law in Nepal – Legal Provisions
Employment in work
Any person who has attained at least fourteen years of age may be employed in a work with his or her consent.
Provided that a person who has not attained sixteen years of age shall not be employed in a hazardous business or work.
Salary to be paid
While employing anyone in any work, the employer shall have to pay the wages in proportion to the work except in cases where the employee voluntarily agrees to work without wages.
While paying the salary, if any particular rate of wages is specified with the consent of the employer and the employee, the wages shall be paid accordingly and if no such rate is specified, the wages for the work shall be paid according to the rate prevailing in the place of work.
Except as otherwise agreed upon between the employer and the employee, the wages shall be paid upon completion of the work.
Provisions of safety measures to be made
A person shall employ another person in a work only after making provisions of adequate safety measures to prevent possible risks or danger in view of the
nature of work.
Prohibition of employees for more than eight hours
A person may not employ another person in a work normally for more than eight hours a day.
If a person needs to employ another in a work for a period more than that set forth in the law, the consent of the employee shall be obtained, and while so employing him or her in the work, that person shall pay additional wages for each hour in proportion to a day by calculating eight hours as one day.
Undertaken work not to be left incomplete
If a person assumes responsibility to do or undertakes to do any work, then the person shall not leave the work incomplete except for a reasonable ground.
Statute of limitation
A person who is aggrieved in relation to any of the matters may make a lawsuit within three months after the date of accrual of the cause of action in the case of Section 644 of Muluki Civil Code 2074 and within thirty-five days in the case of the other matters.
