Maternity leave salary

What is the establishment in which the lady is employed: a Govt. Undertaking, PSU…..etc.

It is felt that for Women Employees of State Public Sector Undertakings / Statutory Boards……the Maternity Leave has been enhanced to 180 days.

Otherwise:

The maximum period for which any woman shall be entitled to maternity benefit shall be 12 weeks of which not more than 6 weeks shall precede the date of her expected delivery.

A woman entitled to maternity benefit under the Act shall also be entitled to receive from her employer a medical bonus of 3500 rupees, if no pre-natal confinement and postnatal care is provided for by the employer free of charge. The medical bonus shall be paid along with the second installment of the maternity benefit. {Section 8 & Rule 5}

The amount of maternity benefit for the period preceding the date of her expected delivery shall be paid in advance to the woman on production of proof that the woman is pregnant and the amount due for the subsequent period shall be paid to the woman within 48 hours of production of proof that the woman has been delivered of a child. {Section 6}

A pregnant woman can also request her employer not to give her any work which is of an arduous nature or which involves long hours of standing, etc. during the period of one month immediately preceding the period of six weeks, before the date of her expected delivery or any period during the said period of six weeks for which the pregnant woman does not avail of leave of absence, under the Act. On such a request being made by her, the employer shall not give her such work during such period. {Section 4}

A woman suffering from illness arising out of pregnancy delivery, premature birth of child or miscarriage shall be entitled, in addition to the period of absence allowed to her under the provisions of the Act, to leave with wages at the rate of maternity benefit for a maximum period of one month. {Section 10}

She may avail this one month leave.

The line management wants employee to return to work. There are instances when female employees keep on extending the leave. During the maternity leave employment of employee is protected. The stiffness shown by HR/ line management is for reasons and situations as perceived by them.

Such situations are best resolved by applying goodwill, rapport, exceptional levels of persuasion, persistence, negotiation, reasoning skills.

In today’s world when majority of the employees are not in joint families, employee also are facing issues. The employers are duty bound to comply with rules/laws and may not budge beyond that.

The lady may obtain printed version of leave rules, HR policy of the company.

Apparently Company has communicated that as per its policy maternity leave can not be clubbed with any other leave of any kind e.g. Paid Leave. Lady may relate it with printed version of leave policy of the company.

Lady may explore other options e.g: she may apply for paid leave ( and get it sanctioned well in advance) as per rules applicable for paid leave e.g. a month in advance, and starting  after.......days of expiry of maternity leave. In between she may join duties.

If Lady is feeling that her body does not allow her to return to work now, and doctor has advised bed rest, and line management and HR are not yielding, the Lady may approach good offices of appointing authority, MD, Company Secretary………and allow to club paid leave with maternity leave.

Or she may request to extend the maternity leave even if on LOP.

You may go thru other similar threads e.g:

https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/forum/Maternity-act-74586.asp

The matter relates to striking balance between employment of the lady and family responsibilities after delivery.

Kindly proceed as deemed fit.

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

she is working in a Pvt Sector(IT).

nothing more to add to Mr Doab's analysis

Hai, my wife is working in a nationalised bank(Kerala). she is working as clerck and joined bank in the year 2011 (November-20). She is a confirmed employee of the bank and took leave from September -2012 as per the advice of her doctor as she had previous history of miscarriage and other complications and subsequently gave another request to conider leave from November2012 as maternity leave. As on September she had 25 days of PL and as much SL in her leave balance. She deliverd on 8th March -2013. Last week HR told that she i not eligible for ML from november and she is eligible from 8th Feb only. She was told to repay the entire salary from September-2012. They haven't adjusteed PL and SL.

I want to know

 Is there any codition like ML should be given only one month before delivery ? Whether my wife is eligible for ML from November ? Whether the SL and PL can be adjusted against her leave from sep-2012 ?

Immediate replay is appreciated

thanks

Abhi

@Abhilash,

Always start a new thread. Thus you shall have the benefit of getting advised by many of the experts/members/visitors…………

-----The maternity benefit can vary from organization to organization.

Of course it can not be inferior or lower than Maternity Benefit Act and enacted/notified amendments to the Act.

As it is already posted in this thread:

“It is felt that for Women Employees of State Public Sector Undertakings / Statutory Boards……the Maternity Leave has been enhanced to 180 days.

Otherwise:

The maximum period for which any woman shall be entitled to maternity benefit shall be 12 weeks of which not more than 6 weeks shall precede the date of her expected delivery.

‘

Some banks provide as per their leave policy Maternity Leave of 180 days.

The Act has provisions of penalty, punishment hence No one including HR would violate the provisions of the Act……………..

You may obtain the leave policy of your bank and relate your queries on different kinds of leave sought by the lady, with the policy, sit with well informed Bank Union Leaders, and understand the possibilities.

Thereafter you may take up with HR, understand their point of view and put up your point of view, and resolve the matter.

E.G:  State Bank of India: These rules are quite exhaustive and easy to understand.

https://sbisa.org/servicedetails.php?id=14

14.9       MATERNITY LEAVE

14.9.1       Effective from 27th March, 2000, the earlier provisions relating to maternity leave have been substituted by the following :-

(a)       maternity leave, which shall be on substantive pay shall be granted to a female employee for a period not exceeding 6 months on any one occasion and 12 months during the entire period of her service.

(b)       Within the overall period of 12 months, leave may also be granted in case of miscarriage/abortion/MTP. Leave applications should be  supported by a certificate from a registered medical practitioner, indicating, inter alia, the number of days for which rest is required, as a consequence of miscarriage/MTP/abortion.

“14.9.2       The Bank may grant leave of any other kind admissible to an employee in combination  with or in continuation of maternity leave if the request for its grant is supported by sufficient medical certificate.”

-------Some employers may allow clubbing leave of other kind with Maternity leave. Some may not.

------The lady had applied leave on more than one occasion.

Did the lady supply the certified copies of medical certificate by the doctor to the sanctioning authority?  Was this leave approved?

Did the lady apply for PL and SL and was it sanctioned as PL?

It appears that the lady did not apply for PL and SL during Sept and Nov……..

If approved was it approved on LOP basis?

You may request to sanction previous leave by adjusting SL, PL…………the sanctioning authority may agree.

 You could have obtained leave rules in Sept itself and planned leave accrodingly.

------------The lady can avail one month additional leave….

“A woman suffering from illness arising out of pregnancy delivery, premature birth of child or miscarriage shall be entitled, in addition to the period of absence allowed to her under the provisions of the Act, to leave with wages at the rate of maternity benefit for a maximum period of one month. {Section 10}

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.