A worked example: ₹41,600 salary, 15 overtime hours at 2x
Start with a monthly salary of ₹41,600 and a standard monthly schedule of 208 hours (8 hours a day across 26 working days). Dividing ₹41,600 by 208 hours gives a regular hourly rate of ₹200. At the Factories Act's standard 2x overtime multiplier, the overtime hourly rate becomes ₹400. Working 15 overtime hours at that rate produces overtime pay of ₹6,000 — on top of the regular ₹41,600 monthly salary.
The formula: hourly rate times multiplier times hours
The calculation runs in two steps. First, hourly rate = monthly salary / standard monthly hours, which for the example above is ₹41,600 / 208 = ₹200. Second, overtime pay = hourly rate × overtime multiplier × overtime hours worked, which is ₹200 × 2 × 15 = ₹6,000. The multiplier is what an employer's policy (or, for covered factory workers, the Factories Act, 1948) sets for overtime — commonly 2x, though it can be as low as 1x or as high as 3x depending on the arrangement.
A second worked example: ₹36,000 salary, 20 overtime hours at 1.5x
The multiplier changes the outcome directly. Take a ₹36,000 monthly salary on the same 208-hour standard schedule: the regular hourly rate is ₹36,000 / 208 = ₹173.08. At a 1.5x multiplier instead of 2x, the overtime hourly rate is ₹173.08 × 1.5 = ₹259.62. Across 20 overtime hours, that comes to ₹259.62 × 20 = ₹5,192.31 in overtime pay — a lower multiplier but more hours still produced a substantial addition to the base salary.
Why the standard-hours assumption matters
Because hourly rate is derived by dividing monthly salary by standard monthly hours, that denominator has a direct effect on every downstream number. The 208-hour convention (8 hours × 26 working days) is a common default, but a company using a different standard schedule — say 240 hours a month — would produce a lower hourly rate and therefore lower overtime pay for the same salary and overtime hours, even though nothing about the employee's actual work changed. Checking your own employer's standard-hours assumption is worth doing before comparing overtime pay figures across companies.