📰

Why India's Minimum Wages Change Again on October 1 This Year

Sonu Gowda · September 22, 2026 · India Real Time

A woman construction worker carrying a wooden board on her head at a building site in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, the kind of daily-wage work covered by minimum wage rules — A construction worker at a building site in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, one of the states where minimum wages reset on October 1. Photo by Carla Antonini, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Minimum wages for millions of Indian workers reset on October 1, not because of a new law or a headline announcement, but because of a formula that runs twice a year on autopilot. Central sphere minimum wages, and wages in several states including Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, are revised every April 1 and October 1 through a mechanism called the Variable Dearness Allowance, or VDA, tied directly to inflation. Most workers who benefit from it have likely never heard the term.

What VDA Actually Is

A minimum wage in India isn’t one flat number. It has a fixed “basic” component set by the government, plus a Variable Dearness Allowance on top that moves with inflation, so the wage keeps roughly the same real value even as prices rise, without needing a fresh notification every time. For workers under the central sphere, and for scheduled employment in states that follow the same twice-yearly cycle, the VDA component is recalculated every April 1 and October 1 based on the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW), published by the Labour Bureau, using 2016 as the base year.

The April 2026 revision, for context, was set using CPI-IW rising from 413.52 to 424.80 between the two reference points, an increase of 11.28 points. The October 2026 revision works the same way, off a fresh CPI-IW reading, but the government has not yet published the updated figures at the time of writing.

What Workers Are Actually Paid Right Now

These are the central sphere daily rates in force for the April-September 2026 window, split into the fixed basic and the variable VDA component that is about to be recalculated.

Category	Basic (Rs/day)	VDA (Rs/day)	Total (Rs/day)
Agriculture, unskilled (Area A)	333	195	528
Construction, skilled/clerical (Area A)	637	371	1,008
Mines, below ground, highly skilled	683	395	1,078
Stone breaking (1.0-1.5 inch)	2,171	1,243	3,414

In every category, the VDA component is worth roughly a third to a half of the total daily wage, which is why a routine twice-yearly recalculation is not a trivial adjustment. For an unskilled agricultural worker, VDA alone currently makes up 195 of the 528 rupees they’re paid a day.

Not Every State Runs on the Same Clock

The central sphere and a number of states, among them Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tripura and Meghalaya, revise on the April 1 and October 1 cycle, which is why their current rates are explicitly dated to expire September 30. Other states set their own revision calendars entirely, some annually, some on different half-year windows, so a wage notification from one state doesn’t tell you anything about the timing in another. Andhra Pradesh, where IndiaRealTime reported this month on a separate change to how pension payments are made, also falls in the April-September window and is due a fresh notification alongside the others.

What Isn’t Public Yet

The actual October 1, 2026 rates, for the central sphere and for each state on this cycle, had not been officially notified as of the sources checked for this article. The mechanism and the current, soon-to-expire rates are well documented; the new numbers themselves are not yet public. This article will be updated once the Labour Bureau’s fresh CPI-IW figures and the resulting notifications are out.

This is the same basic pattern behind two other payment mechanics IndiaRealTime has covered recently: how the new Rs 25,000 EPF wage ceiling actually works, and Andhra Pradesh’s move to shift part of its pension payouts to bank transfer, also from October 1. For conditions in the states on this cycle, see IndiaRealTime’s pages for Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

FAQs

What is VDA?
Variable Dearness Allowance, the inflation-linked part of a minimum wage that is recalculated periodically so the wage keeps pace with prices, separate from the fixed basic component.

Why does the wage change on October 1?
Central sphere minimum wages and wages in several states are revised twice a year, on April 1 and October 1, based on the latest Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers.

Which states follow this cycle?
The central sphere and states including Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tripura, Meghalaya and Andhra Pradesh. Other states set their own separate schedules.

What are the current central sphere minimum wages?
They range from Rs 528 a day for unskilled agricultural work to over Rs 3,400 a day for specialised categories like stone breaking, and are valid through September 30, 2026.

Are the new October 1 rates out yet?
Not as of the sources checked for this article. The formula and the expiring rates are known; the fresh CPI-IW-based figures had not been published.

Sources

Updated September 22, 2026.

Sonu Gowda

Civic & Public Data Writer · 3 yrs experience · Karnataka

Sonu Gowda is a civic and public-data reporter covering Karnataka for IndiaRealTime. She focuses on government data, public services and civic issues, using official records and datasets to examine developments across the state.

Want more like this?

Explore India Real Time →