Maternity Benefit Act

Maternity benefit now sits in Chapter VI of the Code on Social Security, 2020, in force since 21 November 2025. The Code repealed the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 along with the Employees' Provident Funds Act, the Employees' State Insurance Act, the Payment of Gratuity Act and five further statutes.

Of the eight entries in this glossary affected by the Codes, this is the one where least changed. The durations, the eighty-day eligibility test, the average daily wage basis, the creche obligation, the nursing breaks and the dismissal protections were all carried into the Code substantially as the 1961 Act left them after its 2017 amendment. An employer whose maternity policy was compliant in October 2025 is very likely still compliant on the substance. The citation in that policy is nevertheless to a repealed Act.

The entitlement itself is the right of a woman employee to be absent from work around childbirth and to be paid for that absence, together with a bar on the employer treating that absence as a reason to dismiss her or to withhold what she is owed.

The 2017 amendment, whose effects the Code preserves, had changed the shape of it substantially. Leave for a woman with fewer than two surviving children went from twelve weeks to twenty-six. Creche facilities became mandatory above a prescribed size. Adopting and commissioning mothers were brought in. A work from home option was recognised where the nature of the work allows and the employer and employee agree.

Two framing points matter for how the rest is read. This is a floor, so an employer offering more is free to do so and many do. And it is an entitlement rather than a discretionary leave category, which means the questions an employer may properly ask are about eligibility and notice, not about whether the absence is convenient.

Duration depends on the circumstances rather than being a single number.

Eligibility turns on having actually worked for the employer for at least eighty days in the twelve months immediately preceding the expected date of delivery. Days actually worked is the test, so an employee who joined recently may not qualify however senior the role.

Confirm all of these figures, the prescribed age for adoption and the pre-natal split before relying on them.

The benefit is paid at the average daily wage for the period of actual absence. The average is worked out over the three calendar months preceding the date of the notice, using the wages the woman actually earned.

Two practical points follow.

• Because the average uses the preceding three months, a period of unpaid or partly paid absence just before the leave, or a large variable payment falling in that window, moves the figure. It is worth showing the employee the working rather than only the result.
• Payment is due in the manner the Code prescribes, with a part payable in advance for the pre-natal period on production of proof and the balance for the post-natal period after proof of delivery. In practice most employers pay through the ordinary payroll cycle, which is simpler and is generally acceptable provided it does not delay what is due.

A medical bonus is payable where no pre-natal confinement and post-natal care is provided free of charge by the employer. Confirm the current amount, which is prescribed and has been revised.

Where the establishment is covered by the state insurance scheme and the employee is an insured person, maternity benefit is generally payable under that scheme rather than directly by the employer. That interaction matters and should be settled per employee rather than assumed, since it decides who pays. It is worth re-examining under the Code, which now houses both the ESI scheme and maternity benefit in the same statute and applies one definition of wages across them, where previously they sat in separate Acts with separate definitions.

The obligations run beyond the leave and the payment.

• Nursing breaks. Two breaks a day, in addition to the ordinary rest interval, until the child is a prescribed age.
• Creche facility. Establishments with the prescribed number of employees must have a creche, either alone or with others, and the woman must be allowed a prescribed number of visits a day including the rest interval.
• Written intimation. Every woman must be informed in writing and electronically of the benefits available under the Code at the time of her initial appointment. This is an easy provision to satisfy and an easy one to have missed for an entire workforce.
• Work from home. Where the nature of the work allows, an employee may be permitted to work from home after availing the benefit, on terms mutually agreed. This is an option to be agreed rather than a right the employer can impose in place of leave.
• No arduous work. A woman must not be required to do work of an arduous nature or involving long standing periods during the prescribed period before delivery.

Confirm the creche threshold, the number of visits, the nursing break period and the age limits, all of which are prescribed figures.

These are the provisions that give the Act teeth, and they are stronger than many employers assume.

• A woman cannot be dismissed or discharged during or on account of her absence on maternity leave.
• A notice of discharge or dismissal given during the period, or expiring during it, is void to the extent it deprives her of the benefit.
• Her conditions of service cannot be varied to her disadvantage during that period.
• Deprivation of the benefit is only possible where she is dismissed for gross misconduct, and even then only by an order that states the reason, which she may appeal.

The realistic implication is that a performance or restructuring process touching an employee on maternity leave requires care and, usually, advice. Timing a termination to coincide with the leave, or allowing a role to be made redundant while its holder is absent, will be read against the employer even where the underlying reason was genuine.

Contraventions carry imprisonment and fines, and non-payment can be recovered along with the benefit itself. Confirm the current penalty provisions before quoting them.

The failures are usually process failures rather than refusals.

• The written intimation of benefits at appointment is never issued, which is a standing contravention affecting everyone hired.
• Eligibility is assessed on tenure rather than on days actually worked in the preceding twelve months.
• The average daily wage is computed from the current month's salary rather than over the preceding three months.
• The state insurance interaction is not settled, so either the employer pays what the scheme should or the employee is left chasing both.
• The creche obligation is treated as aspirational once the establishment crosses the threshold.
• Leave is granted but the surrounding protections are forgotten, and an appraisal, a role change or a notice lands during the absence.
• Adopting and commissioning mothers are told no policy exists, when the law provides for them.
• Policies, handbooks and the written intimation itself still cite the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961. The substance usually survives the change, but the citation is to a repealed statute and should be updated at the next revision.

Most of these cost nothing to fix in advance and are expensive to fix afterwards, because the person affected is by then in the least favourable position to be arguing about it.