EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 34 of 120

Correct — B, (b) Twelve weeks. Section 5(3) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 fixes the maximum period of maternity benefit at twenty-six weeks, of which not more than eight weeks may precede the expected date of delivery. Its proviso then carves out a different rule: the maximum period of maternity benefit for a woman having two or more than two surviving children is TWELVE weeks, of which not more than six weeks may precede the expected date of delivery. A woman giving birth to her third child already has two surviving children, so she falls inside the proviso and her entitlement is twelve weeks. The history explains the shape of the section. Before the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, twelve weeks was the maximum for every woman covered by the Act. The 2017 amendment raised it to twenty-six weeks but declined to extend the increase to women who already have two or more surviving children, leaving them at the old figure. So twelve weeks is not an arbitrary lower number — it is the pre-2017 entitlement, preserved. One precision worth carrying: the statute's trigger is 'two or more than two SURVIVING children', not the ordinal position of the birth. The stem's 'third child' is a convenient shorthand that works when the two earlier children are alive. A woman bearing her third child whose earlier children have not survived is not within the proviso at all, and the twenty-six-week limb applies to her.

• (a)Eight weeks — Eight weeks is a real figure in the very sub-section being tested, but it does a different job: it is the maximum part of the twenty-six weeks that may be taken BEFORE the expected date of delivery. It is a limit on when the benefit may be drawn, not on how much of it there is. For a woman inside the proviso the corresponding pre-delivery limit is six weeks, not eight.
• (c)Sixteen weeks — Sixteen weeks corresponds to nothing in the Maternity Benefit Act. It sits between the two real figures — twelve and twenty-six — and exists to catch a candidate who remembers that the amendment raised the entitlement but not what it was raised to or for whom.
• (d)Twenty-six weeks — This is the headline figure from the 2017 amendment and the main trap of the item, because it is the number almost everyone remembers about this Act. It is the maximum for a woman with fewer than two surviving children. The stem specifies the third child, which puts the woman squarely inside the proviso to section 5(3), where the maximum is twelve weeks.

The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 secures a woman's employment and her wages around childbirth. Eligibility under section 5(2) requires that she have actually worked for the employer for at least eighty days in the twelve months immediately preceding her expected date of delivery. Section 5(3) then fixes the quantum: twenty-six weeks in the normal case since the 2017 amendment, of which not more than eight may precede delivery, and twelve weeks with a six-week pre-delivery limit for a woman with two or more surviving children. Around that core the Act builds a set of related protections — section 4 forbids employing a woman in the six weeks immediately after delivery or miscarriage, section 8 provides a medical bonus where the employer does not provide pre-natal and post-natal care free of charge, section 9 gives six weeks' leave for miscarriage, section 10 gives additional leave for illness arising out of pregnancy or delivery, section 11 gives nursing breaks, and section 12 bars dismissal or discharge during her authorised absence. The 2017 amendment added twelve weeks' benefit for a commissioning mother and for a woman adopting a child below three months, a work-from-home option where the nature of the work permits, and a creche requirement for establishments of fifty or more employees.

Maternity benefit is one of the social security branches EPFO officers deal with in outline, and the paper tests it at the level of statutory quantum. This item is a good example of the Commission's preferred design: it asks for a number the candidate certainly knows the Act contains, and then specifies a fact pattern that sends him to the proviso instead of the main clause. The habit rewarded is noticing that the stem has supplied a qualifying condition, and asking what that condition is for.

• Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, section 5(3) — maximum maternity benefit of twenty-six weeks, of which not more than eight weeks may precede the expected date of delivery.
• Proviso to section 5(3) — for a woman having two or more than two surviving children the maximum is twelve weeks, of which not more than six weeks may precede the expected date of delivery.
• Twelve weeks was the universal maximum before the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017; the amendment raised it to twenty-six weeks but not for women with two or more surviving children.
• The statutory trigger is 'two or more than two surviving children', not the birth order of the child being born.
• Section 5(2) — eligibility requires at least eighty days of actual work for the employer in the twelve months preceding the expected date of delivery.
• The 2017 amendment gave twelve weeks' benefit to a commissioning mother and to a woman adopting a child below three months of age.
• Section 4 forbids an employer from knowingly employing a woman in the six weeks immediately following her delivery or miscarriage.
• Section 12 prohibits dismissal or discharge of a woman during her authorised absence under the Act.
• The 2017 amendment also introduced a creche facility requirement for establishments employing fifty or more persons.

• Answering twenty-six weeks because it is the famous number. The stem's 'third child' is there to move you into the proviso.
• Mixing the quantum with the pre-delivery limit. Twenty-six weeks pairs with eight weeks before delivery; twelve weeks pairs with six.
• Reading 'third child' as the statutory test. The Act speaks of two or more SURVIVING children.
• Assuming every woman worker qualifies. Section 5(2) imposes an eighty-day work requirement in the preceding twelve months.

Maternity Benefit items in EPFO EO/AO are almost always quantum or eligibility questions — weeks of benefit, the eighty-day rule, the six-week post-delivery employment bar, the creche threshold. Learn the numbers in pairs (quantum with its pre-delivery limit) because that is how section 5(3) states them and how the distractors are built.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 5(2) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, a woman is entitled to maternity benefit only if she has actually worked for the employer for not less than how many days in the twelve months immediately preceding her expected date of delivery ?

  • (a)Sixty days
  • (b)Eighty days
  • (c)Ninety days
  • (d)One hundred and twenty days

  Answer(b) Eighty days

• practice — not a real PYQ

  For a woman entitled to twenty-six weeks of maternity benefit, the maximum period that may precede her expected date of delivery is :

  • (a)Six weeks
  • (b)Eight weeks
  • (c)Twelve weeks
  • (d)Sixteen weeks

  Answer(b) Eight weeks