3.2.

1 GENERAL ALLOWANCES
The employers pay various sorts of allowance to their workmen
depending upon the nature of their duties and other incidents
of the employment. Various allowances are also given to the
employees under different settlements. These are special
allowance, house rent allowance, leave travel assistance,
outstation allowance, travelling allowance, washing allowance,
conveyance allowance, lunch allowance/dinner allowance,
allowance for working on weekly off- unpaid paid holidays, acting
allowance, cash handling allowance, shift allowance, self-
development allowance, transport allowance, underground
allowance, education allowance, and so on. Such allowances are
innumerable. It is therefore, not possible to deal with term
exhaustively. However, some such allowances are being discussed
as illustrative case under the following heads.

3.2.2 TIFFIN ALLOWANCES

Certain commercial and industrial concerns, with a view to
ensure efficiency and economize time, provide free tiffin
facilities to their employees. In some cases, they have become
customary and an implied condition of services.

3.2.3 SPECIAL ALLOWANCES

A special allowance may be granted to the workmen in view of
certain special circumstances peculiar to a situation or where
they have to run some special risk.

3.2.4 HOUSE RENT ALLOWANCE

Under the existing labour laws, there is no provision for payment
of any house rent allowance. The problem of getting house
accommodation has already become and is becoming very acute
and also costly, due to insufficient number of houses and a high
rate of house rent. In order to give some relief to the industrial
workmen on this account, some states like West Bengal and
Maharashtra have already made laws providing for payment of
house rent allowance by the employer to industrial workmen in
their states.

3.2.5 FRINGE BENEFITS

In addition to wages, employees also receive certain
supplementary benefits and services known as fringe benefits.
There is no generally accepted definition of fringe benefits.
Fringe benefits seem primarily to be payments, current or
deferred, which while arising out of employment performance,
are not made directly because of it. They are made because of the
occurrence of some other event in conjunction with employment
e.g., retirement, sickness and death.
Or they are forms of reward to employees not in a direct cash form, arising from or
because of employment. Thus, subsidized housing is seen as a fringe benefit. Fringe
benefit may be characterized as those