Maternity leave (central government)

A woman central government servant gets 180 days of maternity leave at full pay under Rule 43, with surrogacy, miscarriage, stillbirth and adoption covered.

Updated 10 September 2026

Maternity leave for a central government employee is 180 days at full pay. Rule 43(1) of the CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972 allows an authority competent to grant leave to grant it to a female government servant, including an apprentice, with fewer than two surviving children, running from the date of its commencement. It is not debited to the leave account, so earned leave keeps accruing throughout.

Around that entitlement sits a family of related provisions in the same rules: 45 days for a miscarriage, 60 days where a child is stillborn or dies within 28 days of birth, 15 days of paternity leave for the father, 180 days of child adoption leave for an adopting mother and 15 for an adopting father, and, since 18 June 2024, maternity leave for both the surrogate and the commissioning mother in a surrogacy. All are paid at full leave salary and none is debited to the ordinary leave account.

It is the companion to child care leave, which is the separate and much longer pool a parent draws on to rear a child after the birth. Maternity leave is the leave around the birth itself, and conflating the two is the most common error on the subject.

Maternity leave: 180 days under Rule 43

Rule 43(1) grants 180 days from the date the leave commences. The entitlement runs to a female government servant with fewer than two surviving children, and the rule expressly includes an apprentice within that description.

The 180-day figure is not the original one. The rule as it stood carried 135 days, and those words were substituted by “180 days” by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009, which gave effect in the Rules to the decision announced by the Office Memorandum of 11 September 2008. Quoting 135 days today is quoting a figure that has been superseded for more than fifteen years, and the distinction between the announcing Office Memorandum and the amending notification is worth keeping, because it is the notification that changed the rule text.

The two-surviving-children condition is a genuine bar rather than a formality: the leave is simply not admissible under Rule 43(1) to a woman who already has two or more surviving children. One judicial gloss recurs in practice. The Himachal Pradesh High Court held in 2025 that where the first two children were born before the woman entered service, maternity leave for a child born during service cannot be refused on the two-child bar, on the reasoning that the leave exists to support a confinement occurring while she is in service. That is a court interpretation of the rule, not a change to its text, and the rule as notified still reads as it did.

Leave salary, the ESI adjustment, and the leave account

Rule 43(2) fixes the leave salary at the pay drawn immediately before proceeding on leave. There is no taper across the 180 days and no reduced-rate second half, which distinguishes maternity leave from child care leave and from half-pay leave.

One reduction is written into the rule and is almost never encountered in central service. The Note to Rule 43(2) provides that where the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 applies to the person, the leave salary payable under the rule is reduced by the amount of the benefit payable under that Act for the corresponding period. The provision exists to prevent a double payment for the same weeks rather than to cut the entitlement.

Rule 43(5) provides that maternity leave shall not be debited against the leave account. The consequence is worth stating in money terms: earned leave continues to accrue across the 180 days, which protects the 300-day ceiling a woman can eventually encash under leave encashment at retirement. The same bar on debiting is repeated for paternity leave in Rule 43-A(4), for paternity leave on adoption in Rule 43-AA(4) and for child adoption leave in Rule 43-B(4).

Combining and extending maternity leave

Rule 43(4)(a) allows maternity leave to be combined with leave of any other kind. Rule 43(4)(b) then does the heavy lifting: notwithstanding the requirement of a medical certificate in Rule 30(1) or Rule 31(1), leave of the kind due and admissible, including commuted leave for a period not exceeding 60 days and leave not due, may be granted in continuation of maternity leave up to a maximum of two years, if applied for.

Two features of that sub-rule are often missed. The waiver of the medical certificate is express, so a woman extending her maternity leave with commuted leave does not have to produce one. And the two-year ceiling is measured on the continuation leave, so the combination can keep a woman away from duty for a long period without any of it being irregular.

In practice the most common continuation is child care leave, taken from the separate 730-day pool under Rule 43-C. Because the pools are separate, a woman who takes 180 days of maternity leave has not spent a day of her child care leave entitlement.

Surrogacy, from 18 June 2024

Rule 43(6), inserted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. A-24011/21/2023-ESTT-Leave dated 18 June 2024, closed a gap the rules had left open. In the case of surrogacy, the surrogate as well as the commissioning mother, each with fewer than two surviving children, may be granted maternity leave of 180 days, where either or both of them are government servants. The Note defines the surrogate mother as the woman who bears the child on behalf of the commissioning mother.

The same notification inserted Rule 43-A(6), giving a commissioning father who is a male government servant with fewer than two surviving children 15 days of paternity leave within six months from the date of delivery, with Note 3 defining the commissioning father as the intending father of the child born through surrogacy.

Both limbs are drafted so that the leave follows the role rather than the biology, which is why a surrogate and a commissioning mother can each draw the full 180 days for the same birth where both happen to be government servants.

Leave for a miscarriage

Rule 43(3) allows maternity leave not exceeding 45 days in the entire service to a female government servant in a case of miscarriage including abortion, on production of a medical certificate as laid down in Rule 19.

Two conditions separate it from the main entitlement. It is expressly available irrespective of the number of surviving children, so the two-child bar has no application. And the 45 days is a lifetime figure rather than a per-event one, which means a second miscarriage draws on whatever remains of the 45 days. A proviso excludes maternity leave granted and availed before the commencement of the CCS (Leave) Amendment Rules, 1995 from the reckoning, so leave taken before 31 March 1995 does not eat into the entitlement. The sub-rule was inserted by Notification No. 13018/7/94-Estt.(L) dated 31 March 1995.

Special maternity leave on a stillbirth or the death of a newborn

A stillbirth or the death of a child shortly after birth fell between the provisions until 2022, because the mother had delivered but had no child to care for. Office Memorandum No. 13018/1/2021-Estt.(L) dated 2 September 2022 grants 60 days of special maternity leave in that situation, after consultation with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The order is precise about how it operates, and the detail matters to anyone applying it:

Condition	What the Office Memorandum provides
Maternity leave already being availed	The maternity leave availed up to the death is converted into any other kind of leave in her account, without insisting on a medical certificate, and 60 days of special maternity leave is granted from the date of the death or stillbirth
Maternity leave not availed	60 days is granted from the date of the death or stillbirth
Death soon after birth	Defined as up to 28 days after birth
Stillbirth	A baby born with no signs of life at or after 28 weeks of gestation
Eligibility	Fewer than two surviving children, and delivery in an authorised hospital
Authorised hospital	A government hospital or a private hospital empanelled under the CGHS; for an emergency delivery in a non-empanelled private hospital, an emergency certificate is mandatory

The order applies to employees governed by Rule 2 of the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 with effect from its date of issue, and states that past cases already settled in ministries and departments need not be reopened.

Paternity leave

Rule 43-A, inserted by Notification No. 13026/1/99-Estt.(L) dated 18 April 2002, grants a male government servant, including an apprentice, with fewer than two surviving children, 15 days of paternity leave during the confinement of his wife for childbirth.

The window is the part that catches people. The leave may be taken from up to 15 days before the delivery to up to six months from the date of delivery, and Rule 43-A(5) provides that if it is not availed within that period it shall be treated as lapsed. There is no provision to carry it beyond the six months or to encash it. Rule 43-A(2) pays it at the pay drawn immediately before the leave, Rule 43-A(3) allows it to be combined with leave of any other kind, and Rule 43-A(4) keeps it off the leave account.

The rule also carries an unusual instruction. The Note states that paternity leave shall not normally be refused under any circumstances, language that appears nowhere in the maternity leave rule and that gives an applicant something concrete to point to where an office resists.

Paternity leave on adoption

Rule 43-AA, inserted by Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009, the same notification that raised maternity leave to 180 days, gives an adopting father the counterpart entitlement. A male government servant with fewer than two surviving children who accepts a child in pre-adoption foster care or validly adopts a child below the age of one year may be granted 15 days of paternity leave, to be taken within six months of that date.

The foster-care limb is not as old as the rule. As inserted in 2009, Rule 43-AA(1) ran on valid adoption alone; the words on pre-adoption foster care were substituted into it by the Central Civil Services (Leave) (Amendment) Rules 2023, notified as G.S.R. 374(E) dated 15 May 2023, which made the matching substitution in Rule 43-B(1).

That 2023 notification also attached a recovery condition: where the pre-adoption foster care is not followed by valid adoption, the paternity leave already availed is debited from any other kind of leave to the servant’s credit. The same lapse rule, combination rule and leave-account protection apply as under Rule 43-A, and the same Note that paternity leave shall not normally be refused. The detail is in the paternity leave article.

Child adoption leave

Rule 43-B, inserted by Notification No. 13018/4/2004-Estt.(L) dated 31 March 2006, grants a female government servant with fewer than two surviving children 180 days of child adoption leave on accepting a child below the age of one year in pre-adoption foster care or on valid adoption, beginning immediately after that event. The foster-care limb and the recovery proviso were substituted into Rule 43-B(1) by G.S.R. 374(E) dated 15 May 2023, the same notification that widened Rule 43-AA.

Rule 43-B(3)(b) supplies the extension. In continuation of the child adoption leave, a female government servant on valid adoption may be granted leave of the kind due and admissible, including leave not due and commuted leave not exceeding 60 days without a medical certificate, for a period of up to one year reduced by the age of the adopted child on the date of valid adoption, without counting the child adoption leave itself. A proviso withdraws that facility where she already has two surviving children at the time of adoption.

The one-year-minus-the-child’s-age formula is doing deliberate work: it aims at giving an adopted child roughly the same first year of parental attention a newborn would get, so the older the child at adoption, the shorter the continuation.

The pre-adoption foster care limb in both Rule 43-B and Rule 43-AA, along with the recovery proviso, was brought in by the Central Civil Services (Leave) (Amendment) Rules, 2023, notified as G.S.R. 374(E) dated 15 May 2023.

What counts as a child

Both adoption rules extend beyond adoption in the strict sense. The Note to Rule 43-B and Note 2 to Rule 43-AA, both inserted by Notification No. 13026/5/2011-Estt.(L) dated 4 April 2012, provide that “child” includes a child taken as a ward by the government servant under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 or under the personal law applicable to that servant, on three cumulative conditions: the ward lives with the servant, is treated as a member of the family, and the servant has, through a special will, conferred on that ward the same status as a natural born child.

The special will is the operative requirement and the one applications most often fail on. Guardianship alone does not bring the ward within the rule.

How the parental leaves compare

Leave	Rule or order	Days	Who
Maternity leave	Rule 43(1)	180	Female servant, fewer than two surviving children
Maternity leave, surrogacy	Rule 43(6)	180	Surrogate and commissioning mother alike
Miscarriage or abortion	Rule 43(3)	Up to 45 in the whole service	Female servant, any number of children
Special maternity leave	OM dated 2 September 2022	60	Female servant, stillbirth or death within 28 days
Paternity leave	Rule 43-A	15	Male servant, fewer than two surviving children
Paternity leave, surrogacy	Rule 43-A(6)	15	Commissioning father
Paternity leave on adoption	Rule 43-AA	15	Adopting father, child below one year
Child adoption leave	Rule 43-B	180	Adopting mother, child below one year
Child care leave	Rule 43-C	Up to 730 in the whole service	Female servant and single male servant

Every entry above the last is paid at the pay drawn immediately before the leave. Child care leave is the exception, paid at full pay for the first 365 days and 80% thereafter, and it is the only one of them drawn from a career pool rather than granted per event.

The private-sector comparison

The government’s 180 days sits close to, and slightly below, the private-sector figure. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, as amended by the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, gives 26 weeks, which is 182 days, of paid maternity leave for the first two children in covered establishments, dropping to 12 weeks from the third child.

The two are governed by different statutes and neither borrows from the other: the CCS (Leave) Rules for government service, the Maternity Benefit Act for covered private establishments. Where the government framework is clearly ahead is at the edges, in the 45 days for a miscarriage, the 60 days on a stillbirth, the surrogacy provisions and the 730-day child care leave pool, none of which has a direct counterpart in the Act.

Common errors

Confusing maternity leave with child care leave. Rule 43 gives a one-off 180 days around a birth; Rule 43-C gives a 730-day career pool for rearing up to two children, at 80% pay after the first 365 days.
Applying the two-child bar to miscarriage leave. Rule 43(3) grants its 45 days irrespective of the number of surviving children.
Quoting 135 days. That figure was substituted by 180 days by the notification of 1 December 2009.
Missing the paternity leave window. Fifteen days before to six months after delivery, and Rule 43-A(5) treats it as lapsed after that.
Assuming child adoption leave covers a child of any age. Rules 43-B and 43-AA both require a child below one year.
Overlooking the foster-care recovery condition. Where pre-adoption foster care does not end in valid adoption, the leave availed is debited from other leave under the provisos inserted by G.S.R. 374(E) dated 15 May 2023.
Treating a ward as a child without the special will. The Notes to Rules 43-B and 43-AA require the ward to live with the servant, be treated as a member of the family, and have been given the status of a natural born child by a special will.
Assuming special maternity leave applies to any stillbirth. The Office Memorandum of 2 September 2022 requires fewer than two surviving children and delivery in a government or CGHS-empanelled hospital, with an emergency certificate where an emergency delivery took place elsewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How many days of maternity leave do central government employees get?

180 days. Rule 43(1) of the CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972 allows an authority competent to grant leave to grant maternity leave of 180 days from the date of its commencement to a female government servant, including an apprentice, with fewer than two surviving children. The figure was 135 days until the words were substituted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009, which gave effect in the Rules to the decision announced by the Office Memorandum of 11 September 2008.

Is maternity leave paid at full salary?

Yes. Rule 43(2) fixes the leave salary at the pay drawn immediately before proceeding on leave, which is full pay with no reduction over the 180 days. One adjustment applies: the Note to Rule 43(2) reduces the leave salary by the amount of the benefit payable under the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 for the corresponding period, where that Act applies to the servant. For the great majority of central government employees it does not.

Is maternity leave debited to the leave account?

No. Rule 43(5) provides that maternity leave shall not be debited against the leave account, so the 180 days do not touch the earned leave or half-pay leave balance and both continue to accrue during the leave. The same protection is written into Rule 43-A(4) for paternity leave, Rule 43-AA(4) for paternity leave on adoption and Rule 43-B(4) for child adoption leave.

Can maternity leave be extended or combined with other leave?

Yes, up to two years. Rule 43(4)(a) allows maternity leave to be combined with leave of any other kind. Rule 43(4)(b) then allows leave of the kind due and admissible, including commuted leave for a period not exceeding 60 days and leave not due, up to a maximum of two years in continuation of maternity leave, and it does so notwithstanding the requirement of a medical certificate in Rule 30(1) or Rule 31(1). In practice a woman commonly follows maternity leave with child care leave, which draws on a separate pool.

Is maternity leave available in a case of surrogacy?

Yes, to both women, since 18 June 2024. Rule 43(6), inserted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. A-24011/21/2023-ESTT-Leave dated 18 June 2024, provides that in the case of surrogacy the surrogate as well as the commissioning mother with fewer than two surviving children may be granted maternity leave of 180 days, where either or both of them are government servants. The Note defines the surrogate mother as the woman who bears the child on behalf of the commissioning mother.

What leave applies to a miscarriage?

Up to 45 days in the entire service. Rule 43(3) allows maternity leave not exceeding 45 days to a female government servant, irrespective of the number of surviving children, in a case of miscarriage including abortion, on production of a medical certificate as laid down in Rule 19. The two-surviving-children condition does not apply here, which is the point most often missed. A proviso excludes maternity leave granted and availed before the commencement of the CCS (Leave) Amendment Rules, 1995 from the reckoning of the 45 days.

What is special maternity leave for a stillbirth?

Sixty days. Office Memorandum No. 13018/1/2021-Estt.(L) dated 2 September 2022 grants special maternity leave of 60 days to a female central government servant on the death of a child soon after birth or a stillbirth, running from the date of that event. Where maternity leave was already being availed and continued to that date, the maternity leave availed up to the death is converted into any other kind of leave in her account without insisting on a medical certificate, and the 60 days begins afresh.

How is death soon after birth defined for special maternity leave?

Up to 28 days after birth, and a stillbirth is a baby born with no signs of life at or after 28 weeks of gestation. Both definitions are in the Office Memorandum of 2 September 2022, at conditions (iii) and (iv). The benefit is admissible only to a servant with fewer than two surviving children and only where the delivery took place in an authorised hospital, meaning a government hospital or a private hospital empanelled under the Central Government Health Scheme, with an emergency certificate mandatory where an emergency delivery took place in a non-empanelled private hospital.

How much paternity leave is allowed, and when?

Fifteen days. Rule 43-A(1) allows a male government servant, including an apprentice, with fewer than two surviving children, 15 days of paternity leave during the confinement of his wife, taken from up to 15 days before to up to six months from the date of delivery. Rule 43-A(5) treats the leave as lapsed if it is not availed within that window. The Note to the rule states that paternity leave shall not normally be refused under any circumstances. Rule 43-A(6) extends the same 15 days to a commissioning father where the child is born through surrogacy.

Is there leave for adopting a child?

Yes, for both parents. Rule 43-B(1) grants a female government servant with fewer than two surviving children 180 days of child adoption leave on accepting a child below the age of one year in pre-adoption foster care or on valid adoption. Rule 43-AA(1) grants an adopting father 15 days, to be taken within six months of that date. Both rules carry a proviso that where the pre-adoption foster care is not followed by valid adoption, the leave already availed is debited from any other kind of leave to the servant’s credit.

Can leave be taken beyond the 180 days of child adoption leave?

Yes, on valid adoption. Rule 43-B(3)(b) allows a female government servant, in continuation of the child adoption leave, to be granted leave of the kind due and admissible, including leave not due and commuted leave not exceeding 60 days without a medical certificate, for a period of up to one year reduced by the age of the adopted child on the date of valid adoption, without counting the child adoption leave itself. A proviso withdraws the facility where she already has two surviving children at the time of adoption.

Does a ward count as a child for adoption leave?

Yes, on three conditions. The Note to Rule 43-B, and the identical Note 2 to Rule 43-AA, both inserted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 13026/5/2011-Estt.(L) dated 4 April 2012, include a child taken as a ward under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 or under the personal law applicable to the servant, provided the ward lives with the servant, is treated as a member of the family, and the servant has by a special will conferred on that ward the same status as a natural born child.

What is the difference between maternity leave and child care leave?

Maternity leave under Rule 43 is the one-off 180 days around a birth, paid at full pay throughout. Child care leave under Rule 43-C, inserted by Notification No. 13018/4/2011-Estt.(L) dated 27 August 2011, is a pool of up to 730 days across the entire service for rearing up to two children, available to a female government servant and to a single male government servant, and paid at full pay for the first 365 days and 80% thereafter. They draw on separate entitlements, so taking maternity leave does not consume the child care leave pool.

External references

References

Central Civil Services (Leave) Rules, 1972, Rule 43: sub-rule (1) (180 days of maternity leave to a female government servant, including an apprentice, with fewer than two surviving children), sub-rule (2) with its Note (leave salary at the pay drawn immediately before the leave, reduced by the benefit payable under the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 where that Act applies), sub-rule (3) (45 days for a miscarriage including abortion in the entire service, irrespective of the number of surviving children, on a medical certificate under Rule 19), sub-rule (4) (combination with other leave, and continuation leave up to two years without a medical certificate), sub-rule (5) (not debited against the leave account) and sub-rule (6) (surrogacy).
Ministry of Finance Notification No. P-11012/1/77-E-IV(A) dated 21 November 1979 (Rule 43(1) as originally framed), and Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 11012/1/2009-Estt.(L) dated 1 December 2009, substituting “180 days” for “135 days” and inserting Rule 43-AA, giving effect to the decision announced by the Office Memorandum of 11 September 2008.
Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 13018/7/94-Estt.(L) dated 31 March 1995, inserting Rule 43(3) with its proviso excluding maternity leave availed before the commencement of the CCS (Leave) Amendment Rules, 1995.
Ministry of Finance Notification No. 16(3).E.IV(A)/74 dated 20 December 1974 and Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 11012/1/85-Estt.(L) dated 6 June 1988, on Rule 43(5).
Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. A-24011/21/2023-ESTT-Leave dated 18 June 2024, inserting Rule 43(6) on maternity leave for the surrogate and the commissioning mother, and Rule 43-A(6) on paternity leave for the commissioning father.
Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 13018/1/2021-Estt.(L) dated 2 September 2022, granting 60 days of special maternity leave on the death of a child soon after birth or a stillbirth, defining death soon after birth as up to 28 days after birth and stillbirth as a baby born with no signs of life at or after 28 weeks of gestation, and confining the benefit to a servant with fewer than two surviving children who delivered in an authorised hospital.
Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 13026/1/99-Estt.(L) dated 18 April 2002, inserting Rule 43-A on paternity leave, and Notification No. 13018/4/2004-Estt.(L) dated 31 March 2006, inserting Rule 43-B on child adoption leave.
Central Civil Services (Leave) (Amendment) Rules, 2023, notified as G.S.R. 374(E) dated 15 May 2023, extending Rules 43-AA and 43-B to a child accepted in pre-adoption foster care and inserting the proviso debiting the leave availed where the foster care is not followed by valid adoption.
Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 13026/5/2011-Estt.(L) dated 4 April 2012, inserting the Notes to Rules 43-AA and 43-B on a child taken as a ward under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, and Notification No. 13018/4/2011-Estt.(L) dated 27 August 2011, inserting Rule 43-C on child care leave.
Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, as amended by the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, granting 26 weeks of paid maternity leave for the first two children in covered establishments, for the private-sector comparison.