Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to extend maternity and paternity leave benefit to its employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy.
“…. the State Government is now pleased to extend maternity leave and paternity leave benefit to State Government employees, attaining parenthood by surrogacy, as i) A State Government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘Surrogate Mother’ shall be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. ‘Surrogate Mother’ means a woman who agrees to bear a child (who is genetically related to the intending couple or intending woman) through surrogacy from the implantation of embryo in her womb and fulfils the conditions as provided in sub-clause (b) of clause (iii) of Section 4 of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021.] ii) A State Government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘Commissioning Mother’ shall 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.] iii) A State Government male employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a ‘Commissioning Father’ shall 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.],” read a office memorandum issued by the Finance Department on Thursday.
Notably, if both Surrogate Mother and Commissioning Mother, as mentioned above, are State Government employees, both will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each, the memorandum further said.
Agreement on surrogacy made between Surrogate mother and Commissioning parents along with supporting medical documents from Registered Doctors/Hospitals shall be produced for claiming maternity / paternity leave, the memorandum added.
