Seeking Advice on ESI Maternity Benefits: Why Is Our Employee Denied Monetary Support?

Dear HR/Personnel/Labour Law consultants, I am writing from Chennai. Please advise me on the ESI - Maternity Benefit Act. One woman employee has been working with us for the past 3 years. Since she is drawing Rs. 12,000/- per month, she was not covered by ESI until April 2010. After that, she became eligible for ESI coverage, and now she wants to avail ESI maternity benefits. When she contacted the local ESI office for maternity leave/benefits, they informed her that they will not provide any monetary benefits except medical benefits. According to ESI rules, maternity benefits are available if she has worked for 80 days before confinement. Kindly advise me on this issue, please.

Thanks and regards,
Ganpath

Please provide the exact date from which the ESI Act is applicable to the woman employee and the date from which ESI contributions were recovered from her after she crossed Rs. 12,000. Additionally, kindly furnish either the expected delivery date or the actual delivery date. With this information, I will be able to clarify further.

Thank you.

@J. Ganapthi - I know that to avail ESI maternity benefits, the woman should have contributed for 80 days within 12 months. The seniors will advise you as per the ESI rules, and I await their valuable advice. You may please reply to Mr. Harikrishnan's queries so we all can get the right answer.

However, on humanistic grounds and considering the woman's stability (3 years) in your organization, your employer may provide her with maternity benefits, i.e., paid leave for 3 months in case she could not avail ESI benefits. It would be unjust to the woman if she could not avail the benefits in either of the cases.

All respected seniors, I await your inputs on the above points.

Regards,
Vaishalee

Dear Mr. Ganapathi/Ms. Vaishalee Parkhi, I will try to clarify without inputs from Mr. Ganapathi. You will agree with me that once the ESI Act becomes applicable, the MB Act is not applicable. There is an exception to this rule. Please refer to Section 5A of the MB Act. Under this section, even though the ESI Act is applicable to the factory/establishment in which a woman is employed, she will continue to get the benefits of the MB Act until she could get maternity benefit under Section 50 of the ESI Act. This Section 5A protects women to whom the MB Act is applicable initially but who subsequently become members of the ESI but are not able to get maternity benefit because of the conditions stipulated by the ESI Act for getting maternity benefit. So I request Mr. Ganapathi to apply this principle of law to the facts of the case he has on hand. My view is that from what Mr. Ganapathi has written in his post, the woman is entitled to the benefits under the MB Act though she is covered by the ESI Act consequent to the revision of the salary level for applicability until such time she is entitled to get maternity benefit under the ESI Act. I think that I have clarified the issue. In case you have any doubts/clarifications, please post your views.

With regards,