Pay panel recommends child care leave for single male parents

Single male parents working in the Central government will not have to worry about taking leave when their children are sick or about to take crucial examinations.

The Seventh Pay Commission has recommended the extension of Child Care Leave (CCL) currently provided to women employees to single male parents also, even as it sought measures to ensure that only “genuinely affected employees” avail themselves of the “liberal measure unmatched anywhere else”.

The recommendation came amid several representations, which also included demand for scrapping CCL as it “disrupts office working and promotes gender discrimination”.

At present, CCL is granted to women employees for a maximum period of two years (730 days) during entire service “for taking care of up to two children whether for rearing the children or looking after their needs like examination, sickness etc”.

Other representations included that CCL be broad-based into “family care leave” and extended at least to single male parents. “The commission notes that in the event a male employee is single, the onus of rearing and nurturing the children falls squarely on his shoulders. Hence, extension of CCL to single male parents is recommended,” the report said.

It also recognised the “additional responsibility on the shoulders of employees who are single mothers” and recommended that such employees take CCL six times in a year instead of the present three.

The CCL generated interest at the time of introduction. However, women employees tend to treat this as casual leave initially and it resulted in “frequent absences (that) caused disruptions at work”.