Context

Defence Minister has recently approved the extension of benefits of Child Care Leave (CCL) to single male service personnel and certain relaxations of CCL provisions in case of women officers of defence forces.

About

Child care leave was introduced in 2008 with following provisions:

• Child Care Leave can be granted to women employees having minor children below the age of 18 years, for a maximum period of 2 years (i.e. 730 days) during their entire service, for taking care of up to two children whether for rearing or to look after any of their needs like examination, sickness etc.
• The Conditions regarding spell of CCL, imposed upon by the Government are that it may not be granted in more than 3 spells in a calendar year and that CCL may not be granted for less than 15 days.
• As in the case of Earned Leave, we can prefix or suffix Saturdays, Sundays, and Gazetted holidays with the Child Care Leave.
• Under no circumstances can any employee proceed on CCL without prior approval of the Leave sanctioning authority.
• During the period of such leave, the women employees shall be paid leave salary equal to the pay drawn immediately before proceeding on leave.
• Child Care Leave shall not be debited against the leave account. There is also no condition that CCL can be availed only if the employee concerned has no Earned Leave at her credit, Child Care Leave may also be allowed for the third year as leave not due (without production of medical certificate).
• The intention of the Pay Commission in recommending Child Care Leave for women employees was to facilitate women employees to take care of their children at the time of need. However, this does not mean that CCL should disrupt the functioning of Central Government offices. The nature of this leave was envisaged to be the same as that of earned leave.
• LTC cannot be availed during Child Care Leave as it is granted for the specific purpose of taking care of a minor child for rearing or for looking after any other needs of the child during examination, sickness etc.

Extension of benefits of Child Care Leave (CCL):

• Until now, CCL was being granted to woman officers in defence forces. But from now, DoPT has made certain amendments for grant of CCL to civilian employees, whereby the CCL granted to woman employees till now has been extended to single male government servants also.
• Single male service personnel and women officers of defence forces will also be able to avail CCL in respect of child with 40% disability without any restriction of age limit of the child.
• The age limit of 22 years prescribed earlier in the case of a child with 40% disability has been removed for the purpose of availing CCL.
• The minimum period of CCL that can be availed in each spell has been reduced to five days from the earlier limit of 15 days.