Now, mother, surrogate working with Chandigarh administration can take 26-week maternity leave

Women using surrogates to bear a child as well as the surrogates who are working with the UT administration will now be able to take maternity leave, it has been learnt. The UT decision comes in the wake of Punjab government notifying similar provisions in the state last month. An administration notification issued on February 13 states that women employees who want to have a child through surrogacy and the surrogates will be entitled to maternity leave with full pay for up to 180 days or 26 weeks. The notification, issued on February 13, states, “The maternity leave will also be admissible to the commissioning mother, that is, the female employee who engages the service of another female to conceive a child with or without the genetic material being supplied by her and/or her male partner and also to the surrogate mother that is the female employee who bears a child on behalf of another woman either from her own egg fertilised by the other woman’s partner or from the implantation in her uterus of a fertilised egg from the other woman, on the same terms and conditions as prescribed for maternity leave admissible to a female employee.