BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Thursday allowed maternity and paternity leave benefits to its employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy.
As per a resolution issued by the Finance department, a state government woman employee, having less than two surviving children and who becomes a ‘surrogate mother’ or ‘commissioning mother’ will be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days.
While a surrogate mother is a woman who agrees to bear a child (genetically related to the intending couple or woman) through surrogacy from the implantation of embryo in her womb, commissioning mother is a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in any other woman.
Similarly, a state government employee (man) having less than two surviving children and who becomes a ‘commissioning father’ will be eligible for paternity leave of 15 days within the period of six months from the date of delivery of the child. A commissioning father is a biological father of the child born through surrogacy.
“If both surrogate mother and commissioning mother are state government employees, they will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each. Agreement on surrogacy made between surrogate mother and commissioning parents along with supporting medical documents from registered doctors/hospitals need to be produced for claiming maternity/ paternity leave,” the resolution stated.