Recently, in the first of many, Zomato introduced the provision of period leaves for their female and transgender employees. This positive shift in work-culture and acceptance gained a lot of traction on social media.
Here’s to making Zomato a little more inclusive every day. Thank you to all the women leaders at Zomato for driving this change. https://t.co/K2l9287QBj
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) August 8, 2020
However, did you know that the concept of official menstrual leaves isn’t alien to India?
28 years ago, the Bihar government had a similar leave pattern in place. They granted a two-day menstrual leave to women.
According to government orders dated back to January 2,1992, all women who were regular government employees were given two consecutive days of special casual leave every month due to “biological reasons”.
Just to add an FYI – Since 1992,Bihar Government offers two days of period leave to women employees wherein they can decide the days of the month they would like to avail an off ,sans any justification. Culture Machine in Mumbai also has a provision of providing a menstrual off.
— HEENA SHARMA (@Khushhrangheena) August 9, 2020
The guidelines further revealed:
All women staff is eligible to avail two days of special leave every month because of biological reason. This is in addition to all the other eligible leaves.
So technically, now that you come to think about it, the whole idea of menstrual leaves isn’t an outlander concept in our country. It just needs to be implemented,normalised, and accepted more.