The Centre has prepared guidelines for setting up of crèches at workplaces. The guidelines prescribe trained personnel to man the facility as well as infrastructure requirements and safety norms.

The guidelines are not mandatory but are a yardstick for NGOs and organisations for setting up of creches.

Legal provisions-

• Parliament passed the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act, 2017, enhancing paid maternity leave from a period of 12 weeks to 26 weeks.
• The law is applicable to all institutions with 10 or more employees.
• It also makes it mandatory for every organization with 50 or more employees to have a crèche.

The Maternity Benefit Act-

• The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, applies to establishments employing 10 or more than 10 persons in factories, mines, plantation, shops & establishments and other entities.
• The main purpose of this Act is to regulate the employment of women in certain establishments for certain period before and after child birth and to provide maternity benefit and certain other benefits. The Act was amended through the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017.
• The amendment has brought in major changes to the law relating to maternity benefits. These are-
• It extends the period of maternity benefit from 12 weeks to 26 weeks of which not more than eight weeks can precede the date of the expected delivery.
• This exceeds the International Labour Organization's minimum standard of 14 weeks. However, a woman who has two or more surviving children will be entitled to 12 weeks of which not more than six weeks can precede the date of the expected delivery.
• Women who legally adopt a child below the age of three months or a “commissioning mother” will be entitled to maternity benefit for 12 weeks from the date on which the child is handed over to her. A commissioning mother is defined as a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in another woman.
• It gives discretion to employers to allow women to work from home after the period of maternity benefit on mutually agreeable conditions.
• It introduces a provision which requires every establishment to intimate a woman at the time of her appointment of the maternity benefits available to her. Such communication must be in writing and electronically.

Need-

With the advent of modern age, as the number of women employees is growing, the maternity leave and other maternity benefits are becoming increasingly common.

But there was no beneficial piece of legislation in the horizon which is intended to achieve the object of doing social justice to women workers employed in factories, mines and plantation.

The Indian Scenario-

• Gap in workforce participation: In the India Development Report by the World Bank, India has been ranked 120th among 131 countries in the female labour force participation rate. In India, the participation of women was just 27% compared to China and Brazil where it was between 65-70%. Only 6.5% of Indian women are in the formal sector.
• Gender Inequality: In the “Global Gender Gap Report” (2017) released recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF), India has been ranked a low 108 out of 144 countries on the gender equality scale, slipping from 87 last year.
• Inequality in pay: According to a recent report based on the review of FY17 annual reports, India’s women directors are not as well paid as their male counterparts. In the 30 Sensex companies, women directors on an average were paid 46 per cent less than men.
• Exclusion of domestic labour: The household work done by women is not only unpaid but is also ‘invisible’ from national statistics and GDP. Also, the assistance extended by women to their male producers in agriculture or small business goes uncalculated.
• Apart from this, women in India face issues like workplace harassment and subordination, undervaluation, additional baggage of household responsibilities and dismal working conditions. The situation is even more precarious for women working in the informal sector.

Responsibility of Society and Government-

It is high time that society and the government adopt a comprehensive approach towards encouraging women to balance their work and motherhood and consider childbearing as a collective responsibility rather than a burden to be borne by women at the cost of their career growth. In this regard, it is important to stop the practice of equating maternity leaves with benefits and using metaphors that compare pregnancy with disability.

What government can do-

• It is time for the government to shoulder the financial responsibility of providing maternity benefits.
• This could be implemented by enabling employers to seek reimbursement of the expenses incurred by them in this respect.
• In addition, the government must find innovative and cost-effective ways to ensure that working women are not forced to discontinue breastfeeding.
• A simple method is to express breast milk and store it to be given to their children while they are away.
• Employers need to facilitate a clean and private pumping room.
• Government has to show the will to change this status quo by ensuring effective implementation of maternity benefits.