In light of recent notifications on crèche rules from states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and Kerala which covers a large share of corporate India and the rise in public interest litigations (PILs) being filed by employees, companies are taking cognizance of the crèche provision under the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act and acting on it. However one of the industry that is yet to fully act on this benefit is the Manufacturing Sector and esp the Factories.
We are in conversation with Sridevi Raghavan CEO at Amelio Early Education to understand her views on Employer provided Creche in Factories and how could the corporates enable the childcare journey in Factories.
Q1. With respect to Factories, there is a debate on the law, whether it will be the Factory’s Act or Maternity Benefits Act(amended) ? What is your view on the same?
Answer: As per the Factories Act, a factory having 30 or more women workers is required to have a crèche facility whereas under the MBA, a factory having 50 or more employees will need to have a crèche facility. Given that employee legislation are interpreted in an employee beneficial manner, as per legal view that we took from experts, the more beneficial law should be the one that is relied upon. Accordingly, the above two provisions may need to be read together to interpret that if a factory has 30 or more women workers Or has 50 or more employees, the employer will be required to provide
a crèche facility. In other words, the moment that the factory qualifies any of the above two conditions, the requirement to have a crèche facility provision would get triggered.
Q2. Do you see lots of corporates focusing on or planning Factory Creches ?
Answer: Across the Manufacturing industry, the focus is to start with Headquarter location and then think about factories. However it should be done together as employees in factories truly need the creche provision as most of them are based in remote locations where there would be little or no choice of good or even home run daycare centres. The Factory ecosystem should have creche as an inbuilt plan or should plan for provision in the coming months.
Q3. Do you feel Factories will pick up this mandate?
Answer: In Factories, employee welfare is a critical focus, and with that said we expect many factories will pick up this agenda as Childcare is the most important point of concern for a Working parent. We have heard of factory complexes, having state of the art housing, fitness, club area , even auditorium. So creche provision is the obvious next for these Factories.
Q4. How is Amelio geared up to support the Creche provision in Factory Landscape?
Answer: Amelio has different childcare models through which we support corporates and in discussion with the Corporate we decide the best way of implementing Childcare – Onsite Creche, Shared Creche, Nearsite Creche.
With Factories we spend much more time to plan out their next steps in a commercially viable manner.
If you are a corporate still undecided on the creche provision please check the link for more details.
