The ministry of labour and employment told Parliament on Thursday that the Centre has not carried out any dedicated assessment or compliance audit of the mandatory crèche provision at workplaces, nearly nine years after it was introduced under the amended Maternity Benefit Act. The provision was later subsumed under the Code on Social Security, 2020.
"No specific assessment or compliance audit has been undertaken exclusively on the implementation of the mandatory crèche provision. The government does not maintain data on the number of establishments required to provide crèche facilities or the extent of compliance with the said provision," Minister of State for Labour and Employment Shobha Karandlaje told the Upper House.
The ministry said no specific assessment or compliance audit had been undertaken solely for this requirement. Instead, compliance is monitored through routine inspections by inspector-cum-facilitators, with enforcement action taken wherever violations are detected.
Employers are sensitised on statutory requirements via the Shram Suvidha Portal 2.0 and awareness programmes.
According to the reply, inspections in establishments under the sphere of the central government have declined over the past three years, from 402 in 2023-2024 to 256 in 2024-2025 and 142 in 2025-2026 (up to March). The number of irregularities detected also fell to 167 in 2025-2026 from 248 a year earlier and 733 in 2023-2024.
However, the number of irregularities rectified rose to 111 from 77 in 2024-2025.
The ministry launched 15 prosecutions in 2025-2026, up from 10 in the previous year and 11 in 2023-24, while convictions stood at one, compared with none in 2024-2025 and six in 2023-2024. A working paper by the economic advisory council to the prime minister argued that expanding childcare services should form part of a strategy to develop care economy, recommending coordinated action across ministries to improve access to childcare and other care services.
Under the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, establishments employing 50 or more workers are required to provide a crèche facility, either individually or through shared arrangements, and allow women employees four visits to the crèche each day, including the interval for rest.
-- Auhona Mukherjee, Business Standard
