The Assam Shops and Establishments Act, 1971 and Rules, are applicable to all the shops and commercial establishments in the whole of the Assam State.
The Act is enacted for the purpose of protecting the rights of employees. The Act provides regulations of the payment of wages, terms of services, work hours, rest intervals, overtime work, opening and closing hours, closed days, holidays, leaves, maternity leave and benefits, work conditions, rules for employment of children, records maintenance, etc.
Commercial establishment means an establishment in which there is conducted the business of advertising, commission, forwarding or commercial agency, a department of a factory in which persons are employed in a clerical capacity in any room or place where no manufacturing process is being carried on, a clerical department of any industrial or commercial undertaking including one of public transport, an insurance company, joint stock company, brokers office or exchange, or such other establishment or class thereof as the State Government may, by notification, declare to be a commercial establishment for the purposes of all or any of the provisions of this Act, but does not include a shop or an establishment for public entertainment or amusement.
Establishment means a shop or a commercial establishment or an establishment for public entertainment or amusement.
Shop means any premises where any trade or business is carried on or where services are rendered to customers, and includes office, store rooms, godown or warehouse whether in the same premises or otherwise used in connection with such trade or business workshops including automobile repairing garages, accountants establishments, drawing and designing firms, solicitors' establishments, but does not include a commercial establishment or a shop attached to a factory where the persons employed in the shop are allowed the benefit provided for workers under the Factories Act, 1948 (Central Act No. 63 of 1948) or an establishment for public entertainment or amusement.
The certificate or the renewal certificate, as the case may be, shall be kept prominently displayed at some conspicuous place of the establishment.
Subject to the general or special orders of the State Government, an employer shall maintain such registers and records and display on the premises of his establishment such notices as may be prescribed. All such registers and records shall be kept in the premises of the establishment to which they relate.