ESI Applicability — Which of Its Numbers Can Change Without an Amendment

Which numbers can change without an amendment — and which can't

This is the actual differentiator, and it's easy to get backwards if you assume every figure in Chapter IV works the same way:

• Notification-dependent — the government can change these without Parliament touching the Code: the contribution rate (Section 29(2), see the rate and its 21 November 2026 sunset) and the wage ceiling (Section 2(89), see the ceiling explained).
• Fixed in the Code's own text — changing this needs an amendment to the First Schedule itself, not just a notification: the 10-employee coverage threshold for Chapter IV.

The First Schedule states it directly, no delegation clause attached to the headline number itself:

"IV  Employee's State Insurance Corporation  Every establishment in which ten or more persons are employed other than a seasonal factory..."

(The Central Government does retain a narrower notification power here too — to extend coverage to specific hazardous occupations regardless of headcount, and to bring in additional establishments by notification. But the baseline "10" is the Code's own number, not a placeholder for one.)

ESI is area-wise — confirmed directly from the First Schedule

This is the part most content glosses over. Crossing the 10-employee threshold makes an establishment covered in principle, but contribution liability doesn't start automatically. The First Schedule's own third proviso for Chapter IV says so directly:

"...the contribution from the employers and employees of an establishment shall be payable under section 29 on and from the date on which any benefits under Chapter IV... are provided by the Corporation to the employees of the establishment and such date shall be notified by the Central Government."

In plain terms: ESI's medical infrastructure — dispensaries, hospitals, empanelled doctors — has to actually reach an area before contributions become payable there. That's the textual basis for "ESI isn't nationwide by default." Historically this is why ESI coverage expanded district by district over decades, rather than switching on everywhere at once, and the same area-wise notification structure carries into the new Code unchanged.

Two more carve-outs, confirmed from the same Schedule and Chapter

• Hazardous occupations — the First Schedule's second proviso brings in "such hazardous or life threatening occupation as notified by the Central Government, in which even a single employee is employed," overriding the 10-employee floor entirely for those specific occupations.
• Plantations — covered separately by default under Chapter IV's employer definition, but Section 46 and the First Schedule allow a plantation employer to opt in to ESI where the Corporation's benefits work out better than what the employer already provides.

Coverage is sticky, once triggered

Section 1(8) applies across every chapter, ESI included: "an establishment to which any Chapter applies at the first instance shall continue to be applied thereafter even if the number of employees therein at any subsequent time falls below the threshold." Cross 10 employees once, and a later dip below that number doesn't undo ESI coverage.