Employees, across all industries in India, are
entitled to a certain number of leaves per year aside from the holidays and
days off. The number and type of leave depends on the industry, employer
and state you are in under the Factories Act and State’s
shop and establishment act. Every state has different leave
entitlement and leave policies which are basis for leave policy of your company.
In India, three types of leaves are generally followed namely earned leave,
sick leave and casual leave which an employee can avail without loss of pay.
Casual leave is provided
to to take care of urgent and unseen matters like child has fallen down in
school and you get call from school.
Sick leave is provided
in case employee gets sick.
Privilege leave or Earned
Leave is provided for planned long leaves for the purpose of travel,
vacation etc.
General Overview of Leaves
Commencement of Leave Period is calendar year i.e
1st January to 31st December every year. All regular employees are
entitled to around 27 days leave in a year. Holiday List is provided at the
beginning of the calendar year. Generally all State Legislations has
common provision for leaves usually at least seven holidays for national and
other festivals. Republic day, Independence Day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday
are compulsory holidays. Employer and Employees can decide remaining national
and festival holidays. Hence Diwali holiday in Karnataka is usually
on Narak-Chaturdashi(second day) while in Delhi it is on Laxmi Pooja
day. Minimum 7 days casual leave and 14 days sick leave is provided to
employees.
Employee need to apply for each leave and take
approval except in cases where approval could not be taken in advance usually
for casual or sick leaves. Grant of leave shall depend upon the policies of the
workplace and is at the discretion of the manager/management. There is no
set rule for which leave to be approved and not approved. Employer can
refuse the leave application, if not satisfied with the reason of leave. It
depends from reason to reason, manager to manager.
Prorate means in proportion. For new joinee & resigned employees one gets pro rated leaves. So
if one works half a year, one is entitled to just half of leaves.
Usually All leaves with pay are excluding
weekly off and holidays. For example if an employee take leave from
Saturday to Monday where Sunday is weekly off then Sunday should not be counted
as leave. Hence only 2 leaves should be counted. If an employee is
on leave for whole month (30 days) which includes 4 weekly off and 1 holiday
then employee should be considered on leave for 25 days only. But then it
depends on the Shop and Establishment Act of the state.
Types of leaves
Sick Leave/Medical Leave
Sick leave is the leave that an employee can avail
when he is out of work due to illness.
Sick Leave can be taken for minimum 0.5 to maximum
7 days (paid) .
There are no sick leave carry-forwards or encasement. At the end of calendar year any available sick leave will lapse
automatically.
For all absences exceeding 2 or 3 days, depending
on company policy, usually medical certificate needs to be enclosed.
Sick Leave can be appended with Earned Leave.
For new joinee & resigned employees one gets
pro rated sick leave.
Casual Leave
Casual Leave(CL) are granted for certain unforeseen
situation or were you are require to go for one or two days leaves to attend to
personal matters and not for vacation. In case of casual leave normally
company’s strict maximum to 3 days in a month. In such cases the person
has to take the permission in advance.
Casual Leave can be taken for minimum 0.5 to
maximum 3 days. In case of more than 3 days leave, it should be taken as
Earned/Privileged Leave. If taking 3 leaves together Need to apply before.
As per the rules under The Shops and Establishment
Act, you are entitled to 6 days of Casual Leave
There are no casual leave carry-forwards. At the
closing day of year any unused Casual Leaves will lapse
automatically.
Casual leave is not encashable. At the end of the
year unused Casual Leaves lapse automatically.
Can not be appended with Earned/Privileged
Leave or Sick Leave
For new joinee or person who has resigned Casual
leaves are on Pro rata basis. If you have joined during the middle of the year
say Jul 1, your casual leave will half ( pro-rated) from the date you start
employment through December 31 of that calendar year.
Earned Leave or Privilege leave
Privilege leave or Earned
Leave is provided for planned long leaves for the purpose of travel,
vacation etc
Earned Leave is calculated on a month on month
basis for the calendar year. Earned Leave is credited in the beginning of
Calender Year to every employee’s account, but the entitlement will be
proportional to the number of months worked. For example Based on company
policy, for every month completed in the company 1.25 days will be credited to
the employee’s entitlement.
If you have joined during the middle of the year,
your earned leave will be pro-rated from the date you start employment through
December 31 of that calendar year.
For employees who resign, their leaves entitlement
would be calculated pro rata i.e. till their last day of work. Any excess leave
taken would be adjusted in Full & Final Settlement.
If you are unable to use all of your accrued Earned
Leave during a calendar year, you may elect to carry forward any accrued but
unused Earned leave into the next calendar year, subject to the maximum accrual
level. Maximum number of earned leaves is based on State
your company is, which typically is 30 working days but in some states can go
upto 45 or 60 days.
Accumulated leaves can be encased at time of
working or leaving the company based on company’s policy. The formula used for
calculation of Enhanceable Leaves is :Encashable Amount = Monthly Gross / 22*
Encashable Leave.
Leave Encashment during service is fully taxable in
all cases.
Any payment by way of leave encashment received by
Central & State Govt. employees at the time of retirement in respect of the
period of earned leave at credit is fully exempt. In case of other
employees, the exemption is to be limited
What is difference between Earned Leave and
Privileged Leave : Although the nature and purpose of both
Privilege Leave(PL) and Earned Leaved(EL) are same, however, applicability
differs in terms of minimum allotment and act twitch covers them.
Under Factories Act such leaves are called
Earned Leave (EL) and under Shops & Estb. Act the same are called Privilege
Leave (PL).
Another difference is how many leaves are allotted
under this category. Under Factories Act, 1 EL for every 20 days of work and on
the other hand under S&E Act 5 PL for every 4 months work .
Other leaves
Apart from these, there are others paid, unpaid or
half-paid leaves like Study Leave, Bereavement Leave and Leave for Voting.
These although are left at the organization’s discretion.
National Holidays and Festival Holidays
Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August
15) and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) are the three national holidays observed in
India. On these days all institutions, irrespective of under which law they are
covered, or whether they are public or private organizations or MNCs should
necessarily remain closed.
The festival holiday are decided based on the local
festival of that locality and are granted to the employees in accordance with
the company policies..
Maternity Leave
Maternity Leave is covered by Maternity
Benefits Act, 1961
Female employees are entitled to a maximum of 12
weeks (84 days) paid maternity leave. Six weeks leave has to be taken after the
actual date of delivery
A woman worker is entitled to maternity benefit
only if she has worked at least 80 days in an establishment in the 12 months
prior to her expected date of delivery
In case of miscarriage or medical termination of
pregnancy, an employee is entitled to six weeks of paid maternity leave.
Employees are also entitled to one additional month
of paid leave in case of complications arising related to pregnancy, delivery,
premature birth, miscarriage, medical termination or a tubectomy operation (two
weeks in this case)
No pregnant woman can, on a request made by her in
this behalf, be required by her employer to do any work (during 10 weeks before
her expected delivery) which is of an arduous nature or which involves long
hours of standing, or which in any way is likely to interfere with her
pregnancy or the normal development of the fetus, or is likely to cause her
miscarriage or otherwise to adversely affect her health.
Paternity leave
Paternity leave is paid or unpaid leave given to a
male employee when a child is born. While paternity leave is authorised
for government employees there is no law that instructs the private sector to
make it obligatory. Hence, paternity leave is open to interpretation by
individual companies. Thus, on the one hand you have a Cisco Systems (India)
which grants its employees 12 weeks paternity leave and on the other, you have
Infosys which offers 5 days of paid leave
Individual organisations decide whether or not they
would like to extend the facility of Paternity Leave. There is no legal
requirement in regards to granting Paternity Leave to anyone.
Leave without pay
If person does not have any unused leave and the
situation warrants him to take the leave, the leave is granted by the Company
as loss of pay or which may be adjusted against the future leave or as a
special case depending on management discretion.
Hope this gave you an overview of various leaves
that one is entitled in India. Why holidays in different places differ? Why all
companies do not give Paternity leave? Do you think men should get Paternity
Leave and if yes how many days?
Prorate means in proportion. So if one works half a
year, one is entitled to just half of leaves.
Note : Please verify your policy for know about
leave details.