Government staff with disabled kids to get 2 years’ leave

State government employees who have a disabled child can now avail of a special childcare leave of 730 days (two years) during their service. The move is likely to provide a huge relief to those beleaguered employees who are battling with their children’s disabilities.

The finance department of the government issued a circular towards this end on Wednesday. A total leave of 730 days can be availed of during the entire tenure of an employee’s service, but only till the disabled child turns 22 years of age.

Only those employees who have children with disabilities such as blindness, low vision, cured leprosy, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, mental retardation and mental illness can avail of the leave. The disability should be a minimum of 40 per cent, as certified by a medical authority.

In addition to this, employees with children who have autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, multiple disabilities and severe disability as described in the National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disability Act, 1995, can avail of the leave as well.

It is also available for full-time teachers and non-teaching women staff in primary, secondary and higher secondary schools of recognised and aided educational institutions and agricultural and non-agricultural universities and their affiliated colleges.

The move comes after Dipika Sagar Nersekar, a stenographer employed with the government, had moved the high court for a decision in this regard.

G.D. Kulthe, the president of the state gazetted officers’ union, welcomed the decision. “We are thankful to the government as it has taken this decision on humanitarian grounds. We had been demanding this for the past five years,” he said.