Maternity Benefit Act 2017

To prepare for Indian Polity for any competitive exam, aspirants have to know about the basics of the Directive Principle of State Policy. It gives an idea of all the topics important for IAS Exam and the polity syllabus (GS-II). Directive Principle of State Policy and related topics are extremely important for the UPSC Exam. This is an essential portion of the polity. As IAS aspirants, you should be thorough with the Directive Principle of State Policy. This article will provide you with relevant details about the Maternity Benefit Act 2017.

• The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 had received Presidential assent on 27 March 2017 after being passed by the Parliament. The Act has made amendments to the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961.
• This act has bearing upon 42 in DPSP – Provision for just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief.

Aim – To regulate the employment of women during the period of child birth. It has amended the provisions related to the duration and applicability of maternity leave, and other facilities.

• The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 has increased the duration of paid maternity leave available for women employees to 26 weeks from 12 weeks.
• However, for those women who are expecting after having 2 children, the duration of the leave remains unaltered at 12 weeks.
• The paid maternity leave can be availed 8 weeks before the expected date of delivery. Before the amendment, it was 6 weeks.
• The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 has extended the benefits applicable to the adoptive and commissioning mothers and provides that woman who adopts a child will be given 12 weeks of maternity leave from the date of adoption.
• The Act has introduced an enabling provision relating to “work from home” that can be exercised after the expiry of 26 weeks leave
• The amended Act has mandated crèche facility for every establishment employing 50 or more employees. The women employees should be permitted to visit the facility 4 times during the day.
• The amended act makes it compulsory for the employers to educate women about the maternity benefits available to them at the time of their appointment.
• The act is applicable to all those women employed in factories, mines and shops or commercial establishments employing 10 or more employees.

• The amended act has raised the maternity benefits from 12 weeks to 26 weeks. This is significant and is in line with the recommendation of the World Health Organisation which says that children must be exclusively breastfed by the mother for the first 24 weeks.
• The extension in the maternity leave will help in improving survival rates of children and healthy development of both mother and child.
• This will also reduce the instances of women dropping out of the labour force due to absence of adequate maternity leave.
• The amended act also falls in line with international best practices such as the Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No 183) which calls for at least 14 weeks of mandatory maternity benefit.
• Another significant feature is the introduction of 12 weeks of maternity benefits to the adopting and commissioned mothers.
• The amended provisions have placed India third worldwide only behind Canada and Norway globally in the amount of maternity benefits being made available to the women workers.

• The increase in the maternity leave could also have adverse impact on the job opportunities for women.
• The requirement of full payment of wages during maternity leave could increase costs for employers and could result in increased preference for hiring male workers.
• Moreover, various provisions of the amended act lack clarity. For instance, there is no clarity in the act regarding the time period up to which the crèche facility could be extended to the employee and also regarding the aspect of availability, frequency and extent of nursing breaks.
• The provisions regarding the applicability of the Act to the unorganised sector also remain unclear. The provisions did not clarify whether the act is applicable to the women employees in those enterprises having less than 10 employees. This is disturbing as over 90% of the working women are employed in unorganised sector in India.

• Increasing maternity benefit is a welcome step but the government should devise some mechanism to ensure that competitiveness of the private sector is not affected.
• The government should try to bring about uniformity in labour laws about maternity benefits. The acts like Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955, Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Factories Act, 1948, and the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act, 2008 have differences in coverage, benefits and financing. All these laws must be amalgamated to uniformly disseminate the benefits across various sectors in India.
• Amendments are silent on provisions regarding paternity benefits. At present, paternity benefits are permitted in government jobs as a part of leave rules and in private organizations as a matter of internal policy. In this regard, ILO has recognised men’s right to parenthood.
• Expediting implementation of labour code to reduce complexity and simplification of the regulation.