The New Year is bound to bring cheers to the central government employees who are single fathers.
Now, they can avail child care leave (CCL) like their counterparts.
During their entire tenure, central government employees who are single fathers will be entitled to up to 730 days of child care leave.
A notification to this effect was issued by the Union Government on Thursday.
Till now, only the women employees were allowed 730 days of paid child care leave. Now, this has been extended to single male parent also in accordance with the recommendation of the seventh Pay Commission.
Now, the single father looking after a child aged below 8 years of age can enjoy the CCL benefit at par with women employees.
The 7th Pay Commission read: “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.”
“Moreover, the Commission recognizes the additional responsibility on the shoulders of employees who are single mothers Accordingly, it is recommended that for such employees, the conditionality of three spells in a calendar year should be relaxed to six spells in a calendar year,” the recommendation read.
The Pay Commission recommended that CCL should be granted at 100 per cent of the salary for the first 365 days, but at 80 percent of the salary for the next 365 days.
Notably, CCL was first introduced by the sixth pay Commission for women employees women.