ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday assented to ‘Daycare Centres Bill 2023’, making it mandatory for public and private departments in the federal capital to establish daycare centres to facilitate employees who have children.

The daycare centres will be set up under a bill signed by President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday. The bill called the Daycare Centres Bill 2023 was signed by the president in line with Article 75 of the Constitution, the President’s House said in a statement.

According to the bill, the federal government will ensure the setting up of daycare centres at the departments having at least 70 employees. In case of violation of the law, a fine of up to Rs0.1 million will be imposed after the first warning. For further delay in the establishment of a daycare centre, a confinement of six months would be executed.

The bill was introduced by Senator Quratulain Marri on November 12, 2018, as presently there were no such facilities for kids in public and private organisations.

The bill said females were more than half of the country’s population and the number of working women as breadwinners or secondary wage earners has progressively increased in urban parts of the country. The Day Care Centres Act, 2018 binds all public and private organisations to establish daycare centres as most of the public and private organisations still lack such a facility. There are very few public and private organisations that provide quality daycare centres to facilitate working women.

Some of the daycare centres are not affordable, some provide poor services in terms of hygiene and nutrition, and a few are reported to be outright abusive.

The bill suggested that the federal and provincial governments in Pakistan must establish a body comprising government officials and civil society members to monitor, facilitate, and enforce the ‘Daycare Centres Act’ in public and private organisations to facilitate working women.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2023