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* Mines Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill
The Honourable Dr. B..R. Ambedkar (Labour Member): Sir, I move:
“That the Bill further to amend the Mines Maternity Benefit Act, 1941, as reported by the Select Committee, be taken into consideration.”
Sir, the Bill, I must admit, has been considerably modified by the Select Committee. In view of that it is only proper that I should call the attention of the house to some of the important changes in the Bill which have been made by the Select Committee.
(At this stage, Mr. President (The honourable Sir Abdur Rahim) resumed the Chair.
The first change which the Select Committee has made is with regard to the period of prohibition of pregnant women on women working under-ground. The original Bill had provided that the prohibition should operate for ten weeks before confinement and for four weeks after confinement. The Select Committee has made no change in the period originally proposed, for prohibition before confinement. But with regard to the period of prohibition after confinement, the changes they have made are somewhat extensive. In the first place, the period of prohibition is extended from four weeks lo thirty-six weeks. This period of thirty-six weeks is broken up into two parts : There is a period of complete prohibition which is followed by a period of partial prohibition. The period of complete prohibition, is extended by the Select Committee from four weeks to twenty-six weeks. The period of partial prohibition covers ten weeks. The period of partial prohibition is again made subject to two different prescriptions dependent upon the existence or nonexistence of a creche. During the period of partial prohibition, a woman is not to work underground for more than four hours if there is no creche, and, secondly, she is not to work
- Legislative Assembly Debates (Central) Vol. IV, 11th April 1945, pp. 2788-89.