NITI Aayog member bats for increasing maternity leave to 9 months. Details here

Maternity leaves in India's public and private sector should be increased to nine months from six months, NITI Aayog member VK Paul said. Paul advocated for an public and private sector companies to consider enhancing the maternity leave they offer to its employees. 

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was passed by the Parliament in 2017 entitling paid maternity leave of 26 weeks, up from earlier 12 weeks.

The Indian Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 stipulates that new mothers are entitled to take six months or 26 weeks of paid leave for their first two children. For each subsequent child, the mother can take three months or 12 weeks of leave, which is also fully paid for by the employer.

"Both private and public sector need to sit together to think about increasing the maternity leave of the mothers from present six months to nine months," FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) said in a statement quoting Paul.

According to the statement, Paul said the private sector should help the NITI Aayog to design the comprehensive care of the children by opening more creches for children for better upbringing as well as doing the needful for the elderly care .

"As millions of care workers will be needed in future, we have to develop systematic soft and hard skilling training," Paul added.

FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) president Sudha Shivkumar said the global care economy, the paid and unpaid labour related to caregiving such as childcare, elder care, and domestic chores, is a critical sector that enhances economic growth, gender equity, and women's empowerment.

Care work is economically valuable but globally undervalued, she added.

"In India, the biggest lacunae is that we lack a system for properly identifying care economy workers, and relative to other nations, India's public spending on the care economy is extremely low," she said.