Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the extension of benefits of Child Care Leave (CCL) to single male service personnel and certain relaxations of CCL provisions in case of women officers of defence forces, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

Presently, CCL is being granted to woman officers in defence forces. Recently, DoPT has made certain amendments for grant of CCL to civilian employees, whereby the CCL granted to woman employees till now has been extended to single male government servants also.

 The age limit of 22 years prescribed earlier in the case of a child with 40 percent disability has been removed for the purpose of availing CCL.

Further, the minimum period of CCL that can be availed at a time has been reduced to 05 days instead of 15 days.

Now the proposal of Ministry of Defence extending similar benefits to Defence personnel has been approved by Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh.

With this, single male service personnel will be able to avail the benefit of CCL.

Single male service personnel and woman officers of defence forces will also be able to avail CCL in respect of child with 40 per cent disability without any restriction of age limit of the child.

Further, the minimum period of CCL that can be availed in each spell has been reduced to 05 days from the earlier limit of 15 days.