Centre mulls compensating firms for maternity benefits

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 8

The Centre is mulling a new scheme to compensate private firms which have been mandated by law to grant extended maternity benefits to women employees since March last year.

The Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) both agreed last week that private companies — now legally required to grant 26-week paid maternity leave to expecting women (from 12 earlier) — need to be compensated in lieu of the move lest the law itself is rendered futile.

The decision follows several complaints on WCD ministry platforms by working mothers who said companies are retrenching them instead of offering the legal benefit. The reason cited for job losses in most cases is the financial burden on the companies due to the amended law.

The ministry flagged the alarming trend to the Ministry of Finance, which in turn asked the Ministry of Labour to propose solutions.

The Labour Ministry is now looking at modalities of compensating private firms for half the period of the extended maternity benefit span.

The amendment to the maternity benefit law was passed by Parliament in March 2017. Excitement  waned fast with firms increasingly laying off women even before they went on leave.