The Maharashtra State Fee for Ladies has began the method of drafting a framework for menstrual depart within the state. |Photograph Credit score: Vinaya Deshpande Pandit
The Maharashtra State Fee for Ladies has began the method of drafting a framework for menstrual depart within the state. The transfer comes lower than two days after state well being minister Prakash Aviktar introduced that the federal government was contemplating introducing menstrual depart for working girls. The committee held its first spherical of consultations with consultants from a number of sectors in Mumbai on Friday (February 27, 2026).
“One spherical of consultations isn’t sufficient. We are going to maintain one other spherical quickly and put together a framework. After that, it will likely be submitted to the state authorities,” Rupali Chakankar, chairperson of the Maharashtra State Fee for Ladies, stated on Friday.
He stated some states and personal corporations are already taking the lead on this problem. “Bihar was the primary state to introduce menstrual depart in 1992. We have to assume whether or not this depart needs to be prolonged solely to authorities departments or elsewhere. The Ladies’s Committee has been working for the menstrual rights of ladies sugarcane cutters for the previous six months,” she stated.
Neelam Gohe, president of the Maharashtra Legislative Council and senior Shiv Sena chief who has been engaged on girls’s rights for 4 many years, stated it was vital to achieve a consensus and put together a “fastidiously worded” draft that doesn’t discriminate in opposition to girls or trigger additional prejudice.
“This debate isn’t just about menstruation, it’s about girls’s well being and hygiene. It’s associated to girls’s dignity, the provision of sources and the equality that ladies ought to get pleasure from. Societal reactions are combined. On the one hand, some say it will be significant. Alternatively, girls speak about empowerment, however others say it results in discrimination as a result of it proves that ladies are inferior and want concessions,” Chakankar stated.
Some audio system expressed concern that the coverage may result in discrimination in opposition to girls and will result in personal corporations not hiring girls. “When maternity depart was prolonged from three to 6 months, many corporations thought-about their employment insurance policies. Will this imply that ladies won’t be employed now that the difficulty continues to be thought-about taboo?” requested Audrey DiMello, an advocate with Majlis, an NGO that gives authorized help to girls and youngsters. She stated it was a constitutional proper of ladies because it may very well be a part of constructive discrimination which falls underneath the elemental proper underneath Article 15(3) of the Structure. This provision empowers the federal government to enact legal guidelines for the welfare of ladies and youngsters.
“Embrace in manifest”
Lawyer and former Ladies’s Fee chairperson Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar stated political events ought to embody menstrual depart as a ballot promise of their marketing campaign manifestos as they search girls’s votes. He emphasised a change in society’s mindset to cease contemplating the difficulty as taboo. Reflecting on how constitutional provisions can be utilized to result in laws, he stated the elemental rights underneath Article 21 (regarding the appropriate to life, liberty and dignity) can’t be separated from Article 15 (non-discrimination) and Article 32 (proper to constitutional redress).
Shireen Lokhande, Joint Commissioner, Maharashtra Labor Division, confused the necessity to “deal with inequality as inequality” to make sure that girls obtain truthful remedy. She stated the Outlets Act and Factories Act may very well be amended to incorporate menstrual depart.
A number of consultants emphasised the necessity to dispel the stigma surrounding menstrual depart if accepted so that ladies can really feel protected taking it. Some instructed that depart needs to be versatile and optionally available, permitting girls to take it based mostly on their medical necessities. Vandana Geraikar, deputy collector of the Slum Rehabilitation Division, who final yr printed a analysis paper on the financial influence of ladies’s absenteeism on account of menstruation, stated the depart would have a constructive influence on girls’s productiveness.
Aswathi Dorje, Senior IPS Officer, ADG (Prevention of Atrocities In opposition to Ladies and Youngsters); Famend gynecologist Dr. Rajshri Katke. Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar, former chairperson of the Ladies’s Fee; Puja Survey, a sports activities coach and worldwide athlete. gender rights and psychological well being activist Lakshmi Yadav; Neena Sawant, head of the psychiatry division at Nile Hospital, was one of many distinguished girls leaders current on the dialogue.
