Maternity bill may lead to lesser women in India's workforce, says report

Only 27% Indian women are in the labour force-the lowest among BRICS countries

Ten sectors of the Indian workforce may lose 1-1.8 million women in FY19 as a fallout of the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill passed last year, according to a Times of India report quoting a TeamLease study. 

The bill gave the working woman a lot of protections and was seen to be helping 1.8 million women, as reported by Business Standard earlier. It placed India in the third position in terms of the number of weeks for maternity leave after Canada and Norway where it is 50 weeks and 44 weeks, respectively. 

The ToI report says that small businesses have been