Salient Features of Guidelines:
- Organizations covered: The Maternity Benefit Amendment Act, 2017, which enhanced paid maternity leave from a period of 12 weeks to 26 weeks, also makes it mandatory for every organisation with 50 or more employees to have a crèche.
- Location: The guidelines recommend that a crèche be either at the workplace or within 500 metres of it. Alternatively, it could also be in the beneficiaries’ neighbourhood.
- Timings: It has to be opened for 8-10 Hours. Timing should be adjusted according to the shift system at the workplace.
- Size: A crèche must have a minimum space of 10 to 12 square feet per child to ensure that she or he can play, rest and learn.
- Manpower:
- There should also be at least one supervisor per crèche and a trained worker for every 10 children under three years of age or for every 20 children above the age of three, along with a helper.
- The crèche staff should be paid at least minimum wages.
- Safety:
- There should be no unsafe places such as open drains, deep and large pits, garbage bins near the centre.
- It should have atleast one guard per crèche, who should have undergone police verification. No outsiders such as plumbers, drivers, electricians be allowed inside the crèche when children are present.
- A crèche monitoring committee with representations from among crèche workers, parents and administration should be formed.
- There should also be a grievance redressal committee for inquiring into instances of sexual abuse.
- Nature of Guidelines: The guidelines are “not mandatory" but are a yardstick for NGOs and organisations for setting up of creches.
