Maternity Bill passed in Rajya Sabha; 26 weeks of paid leave for working women

The much-awaited amendment to Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 has been passed in the upper house of the parliament, which means that working women would now have for 26 weeks of maternity leave, besides 12 weeks for commissioning mothers. As of now, working women are given 12 weeks of maternity leaves.

The bill also enables "work from home" option for nursing mothers in case their job profiles allow. However, the extended leaves would only be applicable for employees with less than two kids. In case of third child, the old provision of 12 weeks of leave would be applicable.

The act is applicable to all establishments employing 10 or more persons.

After being passed in the Rajya Sabha, the bill will now go to Lok Sabha, after which the labour ministry will notify the changes.

Talking of commissioning mothers, the amended bill propose 12 weeks of leave to women using surrogates to bear a child and those adopting a baby below the age of three months.

The duration of work-from-home option will be mutually agreed upon by the employee and the employer.

Other than increasing the maternity leaves, the amendment also mandates firms with 50 employees to have individual crèches or a combined crèche managed by a few firms within a prescribed distance. Women employees would be allowed four visits to the crèche.

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