Historic Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill 2016

If there is only one reason to vote for Modi Government again in 2019, then Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill 2016 is the reason. There can’t be a better gift to working women in India. It is often said that, a country can’t develop without equal contribution of women. As per a study done in 2016, female labor force participation (FLFP) rate has fallen in India to just 27% from a high of 37% in 2005. If we compare India with BRICS then we find that India has lowest FLFP rate. FLFP rate in China is 64%, Brazil 59%, Russia 57% and South Africa is 45%. We can say that we are under-utilizing our women in workforce in India.

As per a survey done by Assocham, 25% of first-time mothers quit jobs to raise children. I have witnessed that few of my friends/relatives have been denied promotion, pay hike for 1 year because of their pregnancy (in some other company, not in the company where I am working). As per some newspaper articles, a few ladies have been give pink slip, when supervisors came to know about their pregnancy. Aren’t we ashamed of this? We had just 84 days of pregnancy leave in India and then women were forced to resume the work immediately or quit. How is this possible for a mother to leave 70-80 days baby & resume work?  You will find many full time mons who had to quit their lucrative career. We find many women CEOs in India particularly in Banking Sector but their numbers are still very less.

In last few years, Govt. organizations and some private companies like Accenture, Flipkart etc. had extended the maternity leave to 26 weeks.Now Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill 2016 provides Indian working women like mandatory 26 weeks of maternity leave, allowing work from home whenever possible, setting up of crèche facilities for working mothers by company etc. This will benefit 1.8 Million working Indian women in organized sector. I don’t think this move will be counterproductive for women, as many western countries provide better benefits to working women without backlash from employers. Its duty of employers to take care of women working for their organizations and they can’t shy away from this responsibilities. Now a days, we see that many organizations have started mentor-ship programs for women employees so that they resume the work after their maternity leave. Its huge loss of productivity for companies & our country if lakhs of women leave workforce every year after child birth. Also there is a guilt among working women that they don’t give much time to their babies. They need mentor-ship & counseling to overcome this guilt. And crèche facilities within the campus will be very helpful as mothers can meet their babies 4 times officially. I think we are still behind the first world countries in this aspect. But this is a very good start and I hope that this bill will pave way for further reforms.

India can’t expect to a first grade country until it treats its women first grade. I would like to thanks our PM, Labor minister and women & child welfare minister for taking such a brave step. Hope this bill will become law soon and bring happiness to millions of Indian homes.