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Now, mother, surrogate working with Chandigarh administration can take 26-week maternity leave
Heads of departments will be authorising the leave.
Women using surrogates to bear a child as well as the surrogates who are working with the UT administration will now be able to take maternity leave, it has been learnt.
An administration notification issued on February 13 states that women employees who want to have a child through surrogacy and the surrogates will be entitled to maternity leave with full pay for up to 180 days or 26 weeks.
Heads of departments will be authorising the leave.
The notification, issued on February 13, states, “The maternity leave will also be admissible to the commissioning mother, that is, the female employee who engages the service of another female to conceive a child with or without the genetic material being supplied by her and/or her male partner and also to the surrogate mother that is the female employee who bears a child on behalf of another woman either from her own egg fertilised by the other woman’s partner or from the implantation in her uterus of a fertilised egg from the other woman, on the same terms and conditions as prescribed for maternity leave admissible to a female employee. The competent authority for the grant of this leave would be the Head of Department.”
The competent authority will take into account all details put before it to take a decision on the timing and period of the leave to be taken by the commissioning mother, reads the notification.
Scrutiny of the leave request at the prenatal stage would be keener and detailed in the commissioning mother’s case. If leave is denied the competent authority will pass a reasoned order and place all material related to the decision before the employee.
The UT decision comes in the wake of Punjab government notifying similar provisions in the state last month.
The administration has communicated the decision to all administrative secretaries, departments’ heads, institutions, boards and corporations. Along with the letter, the Punjab government’s order related to grant of such leave has been forwarded for compliance.
