Major changes

 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 period. Depending upon the nature of
work, a woman can avail of this provision on such terms that are mutually agreed with the
employer.
 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.
Other provisions

The act is applicable to all those women employed in factories, mines and shops or
commercial establishments employing 10 or more employees.
Significance

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.
Criticisms/Drawbacks
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. It could result in increased preference for hiring male workers. The
provision could also impact the competitiveness of industries that predominantly employs
women workers
Secondly, 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. Though, on one hand, the act states that it covers all women working in mines,
plantations, shops, and establishments as well as factories in both organised and unorganised
sectors. But on the other hand, the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 defines
unorganised sector workers as those who are home based, self-employed, or wage workers
working in an entity having less than 10 employees. So 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.
Though the women working in unorganised sector can avail benefits from the schemes such
as the Janani Suraksha Yojana and the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana, they get their
benefit only in terms of cash assistance and lack other institutional support provided in the
maternity benefit act.
Way Forward

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.
The present amendment has the potential to dissuade employers from employing women as
they have to bear the financial burden of maternity benefits. So to stop this, the government
should follow the advice of ILO. ILO has stated that the cost of providing maternity benefits
must not be exclusively borne by the employer. In this regard, the government should come
forward in addressing the maternity benefit financing issues. The government should opt for
paying benefits through compulsory social insurance or public funds as recommended by the
ILO. In this regard, the Pan-India expansion of Maternity Benefit Programme (MBP) of the
Ministry of Women & Child Development is a welcome step. The scheme is applicable to all
pregnant women and lactating mothers and excludes the pregnant women and lactating
mothers in regular employment with the Central Government or State Governments and in
Public Sector Undertakings.
Another issue is that the 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. It wants to see men as active co-parent. In a country where gender
stereotypes are predominant, a gender-balanced approach to parenthood is needed. The
government should come up with a incentivised schemes regarding paternity benefits to
achieve this objective.
Conclusion

Overall, the amendments are a welcome and positive move by the government. At the same
time, the government should address the above shortcomings and should work towards
ensuring that the law provides equal opportunities to women at the workplace.