Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Thursday announced 180 days of maternity leave for its women employees in case they have children through surrogacy.
This benefit has been extended to ‘surrogate mother’, who is genetically related to the intending couple or intending woman and agrees to bear a child.
Male employees (commissioning father) will also be entitled to 15 days of paternity leave, according to notification issued by Finance department.
“Government of India has extended maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to central government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy. In view of this, the state government too has decided to extend maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to state government employees, attaining parenthood by surrogacy,” it said.
Details of the maternity leave and paternity leave benefit for state government employees in case of surrogacy are as follows:
- A state government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘surrogate mother’ will be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days.
- A state government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘commissioning mother’ will be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. (‘commissioning mother’ means a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in any other women.)
- A state government male employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘commissioning father’ will be eligible for paternity leave of 15 days within the period of 6 months from the date of delivery of the child. (‘commissioning father’ means biological father of the child born through surrogacy)
If both the surrogate mother and the commissioning mother are state government employees, both will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each. Agreement on surrogacy made between surrogate mother and commissioning parents along with supporting medical documents from registered doctors/hospitals have to be produced for claiming maternity/paternity leave, it added.
In July, the Orissa High Court ruled that surrogate mothers deserve equal maternity leave, emphasising initial caregiving’s importance for child development while upholding OFS officer Supriya Jena’s 2020 petition against the denial of 180 days leave.
The single-judge bench of Justice S K Panigrahi cited Article 21 to direct Odisha to treat adoptive and surrogate mothers equally and referred to international conventions like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to ensure non-discriminatory employment treatment. “Maternity leave should be granted to employees who become mothers through surrogacy to ensure treatment and support for all new mothers, irrespective of how they become parents,” he said.
