Chapter I PRELIMINARY

1. (1) This Act may be called the Punjab State Outsourced Personnel (Transition to Contractual Engagement) Act, 2026.
2. (2) It shall extend to the whole of the State of Punjab.
3. (3) It shall come into force on and with effect from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.

-1 2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

1. (a) “Administrative Department” means the Department of the Government of Punjab in which the Eligible Outsourced Personnel is deployed, or, as the case may be, the Department under whose administrative control the Entity engaging him functions;
2. (b) “Authentic Attendance” means the attendance marked through an Aadhaar-enabled, geo-tagged or biometric device, or any other digital method, as may be decided by the Administrative Department or Entity: Provided that upon transition into Direct Contractual Engagement under this Act, Authentic Attendance shall mandatorily be marked through a biometric attendance system;
3. (c) “Bank Salary Credit” means the credit of monthly wages of the Eligible Outsourced Personnel into a bank account held in his own name, evidenced by authenticated bank statements;
4. (d) “Continuous Service” means the service rendered by an Eligible Outsourced Personnel against the same or substantially similar function in the same Administrative Department or Entity, without any break, with a minimum of two hundred and forty

1. (240) days of actual attendance in each calendar year and not less than seven
2. (7) hours of daily duty during such attendance; and,-
   • (i) service shall be deemed continuous notwithstanding any change of Outsourcing Agency, where the deployment of such personnel against the same or substantially similar function continued substantially uninterrupted; and
   • (ii) notional breaks attributable to administrative reasons, authorised leave, maternity leave, or natural calamity or pandemic notified by the Government, shall not be reckoned as breaks in service;
   • (e) “Contractual Appointee” means an Eligible Outsourced Personnel transitioned under this Act into Direct Contractual Engagement with the Administrative Department or an Entity;
   • (f) “Cut-off Date” means such date, as the Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint, being the reference date on which an outsourced personnel must be in continuous engagement, and satisfy all of the conditions specified in clause (i), in order to be considered for transition under this Act;
   • (g) “Date of Eligibility” means the date on which an Eligible Outsourced Personnel becomes entitled to be transitioned into Direct Contractual Engagement under this Act, upon the completion of Continuous Service specified in section 5: Provided that where such Continuous Service has been completed by the Eligible Outsourced Personnel prior to the commencement of this Act, the Date of Eligibility shall be the date of commencement of this Act;
   • (h) “Direct Contractual Engagement” means the engagement of an Eligible Outsourced Personnel by the Administrative Department or an Entity in a direct master-servant relationship, without the intervention of any Outsourcing Agency or middleman, on year-on-year contract basis as provided in section 12;
     • (i) “Eligible Outsourced Personnel” means a person deployed in Group-C or Group-D category, engaged through an Outsourcing Agency, a contractor, a service provider or otherwise engaged by the Administrative Department or Entity on an outsourcing basis, who, on the Cut-off Date, cumulatively satisfies all of the following conditions, namely: -
     • (i) Essential Public Service i.e. he is engaged in a service, the disruption of which would, within forty-eight
3. (48) hours, cause cessation of, material impairment of, or substantial risk to public welfare, public safety, public health or continuity of critical function through, the public utility or public service concerned;
   • (ii) Full-time and Non-seasonal i.e. he is deployed on a full-time basis, with a minimum of two hundred and forty
4. (240) days of actual attendance in each calendar year and not less than seven
5. (7) hours of daily duty during such attendance, and not against any seasonal, project-specific, event-specific, temporary, casual, intermittent or assignment-based activity;
   • (iii) Manpower Supply Arrangement i.e. he is engaged under a contract which,-
   • (A) is billed substantially on a per-person, per-month basis;
   • (B) does not impose upon the contractor responsibility for any defined output, work, deliverable or service as a whole, distinct from the supply of labour; and
   • (C) the substance of the arrangement, notwithstanding its form or label, is the supply of manpower to the Administrative Department or Entity rather than the provision of a defined service or outcome;
     • (iv) Minimum Qualification i.e. he fulfils the minimum educational and technical qualifications, and experience, prescribed by the concerned Administrative Department or Entity for the cadre concerned: Provided that the Administrative Department or Entity may take such legally, financially and logistically feasible measures, as may be considered appropriate to facilitate the acquisition, by the outsourced personnel, of any technical qualification which may be acquired by such employee within a maximum limit of one
6. (01) year: Provided further that personnel in a particular cadre who do not fulfil the prescribed norms of minimum qualification but fulfil all other conditions of this Act, and are required by the Administrative Department or Entity for such essential services as are covered under this Act, may be considered for Direct Contractual Engagement in the separate category of workers (Skilled, Semi-Skilled or Unskilled, as the case may be), and not against any such post or cadre, the qualifications of which the personnel do not fulfil: Provided further that where the outsourced personnel are undergoing any such courses facilitated by the Administrative Department or Entity under the first proviso or on their own, such personnel shall be deemed to have satisfied this condition on the Cut-off Date upon successful completion of the said course. However, the date of eligibility in such cases shall be the date on which the outsourced personnel satisfies all the conditions specified in this clause;
   • (v) Non-Packaged Function i.e. he is engaged in a function which is not a Packaged Service within the meaning of clause (n), as certified by the Administrative Department based on the established current practice of engagement for the function concerned;
   • (vi) Direct Functional Supervision i.e. he works under the direct functional, operational and disciplinary supervision of the Administrative Department or Entity and reports directly thereto, without any intervening supervisory chain of command consisting of contractor representatives, agency supervisors, foremen or similar intermediary personnel, as evidenced by Authentic Attendance records, performance evaluation records and disciplinary records maintained by the Administrative Department or Entity;
   • (vii) Technical, Operational, Public Safety or Emergency Function i.e. he performs duties which fall within, at least, one of the following, namely:-
   • (A) Technical i.e. require a prescribed educational qualification, technical certification, trade qualification, licence or registration, including, by way of illustration and not limitation, an Industrial Training Institute certificate, a recognised Diploma, a National Skills Qualification Framework certification of comparable level, a paramedical qualification, registration under the Pharmacy Council Act, 1948 (Central Act No. 8 of 1948), registration under the Indian Nursing Council Act, 1947 (Central Act No. 48 of 1947), a driving licence under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (Central Act No. 59 of 1988), an electrician’s licence issued under the Central Electricity Authority Regulations framed under the Electricity Act, 2003 (Central Act No. 36 of 2003), or any qualification of comparable standing recognised by the Administrative Department or a statutory authority; or
   • (B) Operational i.e. are integrally connected to the discharge of a service falling under sub-clause (i) of this clause; or
   • (C) Public Safety i.e. involve maintenance of essential public infrastructure or response to situations carrying substantial risk to life, health or limb; or
   • (D) Emergency Response i.e. require deployment within hours to address an event affecting public utility, public safety, public health or continuity of administration; and
     • (viii) State-Funded Position i.e. the remuneration of the personnel is paid, directly or indirectly, from the Consolidated Fund of the State of Punjab, or from the funds of an Entity which is owned, controlled or substantially financed by the Government of Punjab, but shall exclude any engagement of which the source of funding, either partly or fully, is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme / Central Sector Scheme, an Externally Aided Project, or any other funding source outside the foregoing description;
   • (j) “Entity” means any Board, Corporation, Company, Public Sector Undertaking, Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council, Improvement Trust, University, Society, Autonomous Body or any other authority or institution established, owned, controlled or substantially financed by the Administrative Department;
   • (k) “Government” means the Government of the State of Punjab in the Department of Personnel, save where the context expressly requires otherwise;
   • (l) “Hazardous Category” means an Eligible Category which satisfies all the following conditions, namely:-
     • (i) personnel are regularly and unavoidably exposed, in the ordinary course of their duties, to exceptional occupational hazards for a substantial portion of the working day;
     • (ii) the duties expose personnel to a significant risk of death, serious bodily injury or long-term adverse health effects beyond those ordinarily encountered in Government employment; and
     • (iii) performance of the duties requires the mandatory use of specialised personal protective equipment and adherence to prescribed safety protocols; and shall include, but not be limited to, the following categories, namely:-
   • (A) Complaint staff engaged in power-related field complaint redressal with exposure to high voltages;
   • (B) Sewer men or sanitation staff engaged in sewer maintenance, garbage handling and unblocking operations;
   • (C) Firemen, Fire Drivers and Fire-Station personnel engaged in firefighting and emergency response operations; and
   • (D) such other category of outsourced personnel, as the Government may, with the prior concurrence of the Department of Finance, notify as a Hazardous Category on satisfaction of the above conditions; Explanation.- For the purposes of item (B), “sanitation staff” shall include Safai Sewaks, Safai Karamcharis and Sweepers, howsoever designated;
   • (m) “Outsourcing Agency” means a private service-providing agency or manpower contractor through whom an Eligible Outsourced Personnel has been engaged for deployment in an Administrative Department or Entity;
   • (n) “Packaged Service” means a service delivered as a complete packaged or specialised service by an agency which assumes responsibility for the service, and certified by the Administrative Departments;
   • (o) “prescribed” means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
   • (p) “section” means the section of this Act;
   • (q) “Statutory Contributions” means contributions payable in respect of Provident Fund, Employees’ State Insurance, Gratuity, Maternity Benefit and such other statutory benefits, as may be required by law, from time to time; and
   • (r) words and expressions used but not defined in this Act shall have the same meaning as, respectively, assigned to them in such relevant Service Rules, as may be applicable.