New Delhi: The defence ministry has announced new rules for women recruited under the Agniveer scheme in the armed forces, granting them maternity, childcare and child adoption benefits at par with women officers.
In a statement issued Sunday, the ministry said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had approved the proposal, which will apply to all women soldiers, sailors, and air warriors, regardless of their ranks.
This means that these women in the defence forces will now have the same rights and privileges as their officer counterparts when it comes to taking leaves.
The rules have now been framed because till now, women were only recruited as officers and not as Other Ranks (ORs), which are below the officer level. With women now joining the ranks through the Agniveer scheme, a need was felt for proper leaves when it came to maternity, child support and adoption cases. Women were first recruited as an OR into the Military Police only in 2020.
Sources in the defence ministry told ThePrint that the new rules will allow women to take up to 360 days of childcare leave in their entire service career. This is subject to the child being less than 18 years of age.
Exceptions will be made for children who are at least 40 percent disabled.
For child adoption leave, women will be entitled to 180 days of leave from the date of “valid adoption” of a child below one year of age.
For maternity leave, women will be given 180 days of leave for each pregnancy, up to a maximum of two pregnancies or two surviving children.
‘Improve working conditions’
The defence ministry said that the new rules will help women in the military to cope with the challenges of balancing their professional and family lives.
“This measure is going to improve the work conditions of women in the military and aid them to balance the spheres of professional and family life in a better manner,” said the statement.
The three services have women as soldiers, sailors and air warriors in their ranks apart from women serving at officer-level ranks.
As reported by ThePrint earlier, the Army is looking to induct women as ORs. While the Army recruited women as ORs in the Corps of Military Police for the first time in 2020, the Navy and Air Force started inducting women as Agniveers in Other Ranks (OR) through the Agnipath scheme, which was launched in June 2022.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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