Punjab allows maternity leave to surrogate as well as commissioning mothers

CHANDIGARH: Punjab government has decided to provide maternity leave with full pay upto 180 days or 26 weeks to female employees who want to have child through surrogacy as well as to those female employees who would bear the child of another woman. The decision has been taken considering the fact that with the advancement of technology, some female employees are taking the surrogacy route to procreate child.
“The government has decided that the maternity leave will also be admissible to the commissioning mother i.e. the female employee who engages the services of another female to conceive a child with or without the genetic material being supplied by her and/or male partner...,” reads the directions. The directions also make it clear that the maternity leave would also be admissible “to the surrogate mother i.e. the female employee who bears a child on behalf of another woman either from her own egg fertilized by the other woman's partner or from the implantation in her uterus of a fertilized egg from the other woman.” The maternity leave will be admissible on the same terms and conditions as prescribed for maternity leave admissible to a female employee under Rule 8.127(a) and 8.127(b) of Punjab Civil Service Rules.
Punjab government’s finance department has circulated these guidelines to all the department heads, deputy commissioners, Punjab and Haryana high court as well as all the district and sessions judges across the state.
In the case of commissioning mother who adopts the surrogacy route, the competent authority (head of the department) will decide on the basis of material placed before it about the “timing and period for which the maternity leave ought to be granted”.
If the commissioning mother seeks maternity leave at the pre-natal stage (time between conception and birth), the competent authority will have to undertake a detailed scrutiny. In case maternity leave is declined at the pre-natal stage, the head of the department would have to pass a reasoned order after going through the material, if any, placed before him or her by the female employee seeking maternity leave.
Punjab government has made it clear that the head of the department would ordinarily grant maternity leave during the pre-natal stage and post-natal period, except where there are substantial reasons for declining a request by passing a reasoned order.
The guidelines further state in a situation where both the commissioning mother and the surrogate mother are employees, who are otherwise eligible for maternity leave (one on the ground that she is a commissioning mother and the another on the ground that she is the pregnant woman), a suitable adjustment regarding grant of maternity leave at the same time or otherwise would be made by the head of the department.