All women employees are eligible to avail of paid maternity leave for a period of 6 months.
These 6 months may be divided into prenatal and postnatal periods. The employee can choose when to opt in regarding the time period and salary.
An additional one month’s leave is allowed for ill health or complications during childbirth.
If an employee wants to extend the maternity leave, the employee has to give a formal notice, however, it will be an unpaid maternity leave excluding the 6 months of paid maternity leave.
To be eligible for maternity leave an employee should be a full-time employee for at least 12 months to access the maternity package, as well as that an employee should have worked not less than 80 calendar days during the 12 months immediately preceding the date of her expected pregnancy.
A woman employee who is entitled to maternity benefits may give notice as a formal mail stating her maternity benefits, the date from when she will be absent from work, the expected date of delivery, and the approximate date of return to work.
An employee who is on maternity leave is expected to give a formal notice by mail stating the rejoining date after her 6 months of maternity leave.
Paid leave for a period of 6 weeks may be availed during an unfortunate event of a miscarriage or medical termination of pregnancy. But willful termination of pregnancy is excluded.
A pregnant employee is by default, exempted from the regular performance appraisal cycle.
An employee is expected to return to work after her maternity leave and should work for at least six months, if not in such a case, the employee should reimburse the salary paid during the maternity period.Preformatted text