Participating in the debate, Sushmita Dev (Congress) said

since amendments raise the period of maternity leave to 26 weeks from the present 12 weeks, it could act as a deterrent for the private sector to employ women workforce.

"Since the employer has to pay the salary during the leave period, the amendment might turn out to be counter productive. Innovative thing to do would be to bring in paternity benefit," Dev said.

She said such a benefit can also be extended to single fathers who adopt a child.

She said only 1.8 million pregnant ladies will benefit from the amendments to the bill as 90 per cent of the women workforce is in the unorganised sector.

Pritam Munde (BJP) said a father also has equal responsibility towards the child like a mother and paternity benefits would help a couple to raise their child together as majority are now nuclear families.

Ratna De Nag (TMC) too made a case for paternity benefit and said her state government in West Bengal is already providing paternity leave for 30 days.

Tathagata Satpathy (BJD) termed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, a social bill and said instead of reducing the period of leave from 26 week to 12 week after the second child, the Centre should say that up to third child there would be 26 week leave and after that no leave. He too sought paternity benefits.

The Rajya Sabha had passed the bill in August last year.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)