EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 29 of 120

Correct — D, (d) 11. Eleven days of leave with wages, and this is section 79 of the Factories Act, 1948 worked in two steps, and the whole item turns on the fact that the two steps use different day-counts. Step one, does he qualify at all ? Section 79(1) gives leave in the following calendar year to a worker who has worked 240 days or more during a calendar year. He worked only 220. But Explanation 1 to section 79(1) provides that days of lay-off — expressly including lay-off permissible under the standing orders, which is what the stem describes — shall be deemed to be days on which the worker worked, for the purpose of computing the 240 days. So the qualifying count is 220 + 25 = 245, which clears 240. He is entitled to leave in 2023. Step two, how much ? For an adult the rate under section 79(1)(i) is one day of leave for every twenty days of work performed during the previous calendar year. Here the same Explanation 1 has a sting in its tail: those deemed days count towards the 240-day qualification 'but he shall not earn leave for these days'. The lay-off days therefore drop out of the earning calculation, and the leave is computed on the 220 days actually worked: 220 ÷ 20 = 11 days. Because he joined on 1 January his whole calendar year is in play, so the separate rule for a worker whose service begins later in the year — qualification on two-thirds of the remaining days — never comes into it. The dates in the stem are doing real work: leave is earned in one calendar year and enjoyed in the next, which is why work in 2022 produces an entitlement for 2023. One printing note: the numeric options are not in ascending order. The booklet prints (b) 10, (c) 12, (d) 11, and the transcription keeps that order. A candidate who computes 11 and then reaches for the third option out of habit will mark the wrong one.

• (a)Nil — This is the answer for a candidate who reads 220, compares it with the 240-day threshold, finds it short and stops. It ignores Explanation 1 to section 79(1), which is the entire reason the lay-off days are in the stem: they are deemed days worked for the qualifying count, taking him to 245. The worker qualifies, so 'Nil' is wrong.
• (b)10 — No computation section 79 supports yields 10 on these facts. The rate is one day for every twenty days of work performed, and 220 days of work gives exactly 11 with no remainder — there is no fraction to round down and no deduction the section authorises. This option is the plausible round number sitting just below the correct answer, and it catches a candidate who has estimated rather than divided.
• (c)12 — This is the designed trap and the most instructive wrong answer. It comes from using the qualifying count for the earning calculation as well: 245 ÷ 20 = 12.25, rounded down to 12. That double-counts the lay-off days, which Explanation 1 admits for the 240-day test and then expressly excludes from leave-earning — 'but he shall not earn leave for these days'. The examiner has built the whole question around that clause, and 12 is what you get if you read the first half of it and not the second.

Section 79 of the Factories Act, 1948 governs annual leave with wages and works on a two-year rhythm: a worker earns leave by the days he works in one calendar year and takes it in the next. Qualification requires 240 days or more of work in the earning year. The rate is one day of leave for every twenty days worked for an adult, and one for every fifteen for a child. Explanation 1 to section 79(1) then makes three categories of non-working days count towards the 240 — days of lay-off, up to twelve weeks of maternity leave for a female worker, and leave earned in the previous year and enjoyed in this one — while denying leave-earning credit for those same days. That split, generous on qualification and strict on accrual, is the mechanism this question tests. Fractions of half a day or more in the final figure are treated as a full day's leave; smaller fractions are dropped.

Numerical statutory items are the EO/AO paper's favourite way of testing whether a candidate has read a section or only heard about it, because a paraphrase of section 79 gets you to 'about eleven or twelve' and no further. An Enforcement Officer inspecting a factory's leave register has to make exactly this calculation, from exactly these two counts, which is why the paper asks it in the form of a worked case rather than a bare recall.

• Factories Act, 1948, section 79 — annual leave with wages, earned in one calendar year and taken in the next.
• Qualifying threshold: 240 days or more of work in the calendar year.
• Rate of leave: one day for every 20 days worked for an adult; one day for every 15 days worked for a child.
• Explanation 1 to section 79(1) — days of lay-off, maternity leave up to twelve weeks, and leave earned in the previous year count towards the 240 days, but earn no leave themselves.
• A worker whose service begins on a day other than 1 January qualifies if he works two-thirds of the total days in the remainder of that calendar year.
• Leave under section 79 is exclusive of all holidays, whether they fall during the leave or at either end of it.
• A fraction of half a day or more in the computed leave is treated as a full day; a smaller fraction is omitted.
• On the facts of this question: 220 + 25 = 245 days for qualification; 220 ÷ 20 = 11 days of leave earned.

• Using the same day-count for both steps. Qualification uses 245; accrual uses 220.
• Concluding 'Nil' because 220 is less than 240 — the deeming provision exists precisely to defeat that reading.
• Applying the child rate of one day per fifteen days to an adult worker.
• Overlooking that the options are printed out of ascending order, so the position of a number in the list is no guide to its size.

Factories Act items in EPFO EO/AO are usually numerical — leave, working hours, overtime, the thresholds at which a welfare provision is triggered. They are best prepared as a table of number-to-section pairs, because the paper supplies the facts and expects only the rule.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 79 of the Factories Act, 1948, a child worker who has qualified for annual leave with wages earns leave at the rate of one day for every :

  • (a)Ten days of work performed
  • (b)Fifteen days of work performed
  • (c)Twenty days of work performed
  • (d)Twenty-four days of work performed

  Answer(b) Fifteen days of work performed

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is NOT deemed, under Explanation 1 to section 79(1) of the Factories Act, 1948, to be a day on which a worker has worked for computing the 240-day qualifying period ?

  • (a)A day of lay-off permissible under the standing orders
  • (b)Maternity leave, for a female worker, not exceeding twelve weeks
  • (c)Leave earned in the previous year and enjoyed during the year
  • (d)A day of absence without leave

  Answer(d) A day of absence without leave