Child Care Leave In India : Single Male Govt Employees To Enjoy

Indian male government servants bringing up children alone are now entitled to enjoy Child Care Leave (CCL) following a reform brought in govt personnel rules by the government at the center.

Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh announced October 26 while briefing the media on the reforms brought by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT),

The minister described the reforms as a path-breaking and progressive one to bring ease of living for the government employees.

Announcing the reforms, the minister said that ‘single male parent’ includes unmarried male employees, widowers and divorcees, who may be expected to take up the responsibility of caring for a child single-handedly.

The minister further said an employee on child care leave may now leave the headquarters with the prior approval of the competent authority, according to an official statement.

In addition, Leave Travel Concession (LTC) may be availed by the employee even if he is on child care leave, added the statement.

Another friendly measure introduced is that in case of disabled child, government job holders will be able to avail the CCL at any point of time while in service.

Earlier there was a condition that till disabled child reach the age of 22 years, govt job holding parents would not be able to enjoy the provision.

Now as said earlier, this condition has been removed which is welcoming.

According to the statement, Child Care Leave can be granted at 100 percent of leave salary for the first 365 days and 80 percent of leave salary for the next 365 days.

Key Points on Child Care Leave Provision & Reforms  : 
# CCL is generally granted to women employees. This can be for a period of maximum two years during the entire service before their child reaches the age of 18.
# Treated as earned leave.
# May not be granted more than thrice in a year.
# The order making single, male government employees eligible for this leave was passed in 2018. But as the minister said there is not much awareness about the policy.
#  Out of the total 730 days of leave, employees get full salary during the first 365 days and 80 per cent of the salary in the next 365 days.
# Widower, divorcee, unmarried male government service holders to be qualified for this.
# An employee on CCL may now leave the headquarters with the prior approval of the competent authority, the minister said.
# Leave Travel Concession (LTC) may be availed by the employee even if he is on child care leave.
# In case of a disabled child, the condition that CCL can be availed by the parents only till the child reaches 22 years of age has been removed. Now, it can be availed at any point of time during service.
# The aim is to bring ease-of-living for the government servants.

Countries Offering Paternity Leave : 

There are some countries in the world where fathers along with mothers can get child care leave though with varying amount. Some of the countries are Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Hungary, EstoniaL and Lithuania.

Unfortunately, the USA is one the 15 richest countries which does not have any federal paternity leave. Source : Hindustantimes, DNAIndia, Businessinsider.