The issue of maternity leave has once again cropped up, with contractual employees at civic-run medical colleges and hospitals being barred from such benefits. Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray wrote a letter to BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, requesting his intervention in the matter. Though the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, as amended in 2017, allows for paid maternity leave across all organisations in India, the assistant professors working on a contract basis in civic hospitals of the city are denied the said benefit.

“Vide Section 5 of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, as amended in 2017, the implementation of which began in 2019, the Government has increased paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks of which not more than eight weeks shall precede the date of expected delivery. The Act is applicable to all women who are employed in any capacity, directly or through any agency, either on contractual or as consultant,” said Advocate Subit Chakraborty, a private practitioner fighting one such assistant professor's case.