Who is to babysit when parents are away at work?

Government employee Shravya struggles to find reliable childcare for her two young children while working at Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru.

Shravya (name changed upon request) is a government employee working in Vidhana Soudha, the Secretariat located in the heart of Bengaluru. She has two children — a four-year-old son and a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, whom she is still breastfeeding. With her 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job, Shravya’s primary concern is finding a place to leave her children when she goes to work.

“I usually leave my children with my mother, but since she’s a senior citizen, I feel uncomfortable burdening her. When my mother can’t take care of them, I’m forced to take leave. As a contract employee, I get only 10 days of leave,” Shravya explains.

For working parents like Shravya, finding reliable childcare facilities is a constant struggle. Many people resort to informal arrangements — leaving children with grandparents, asking neighbours to keep an eye on them after school, or enrolling them in extracurricular activities to keep them occupied. However, as familial structures evolve, these solutions have become less reliable, and formal childcare institutions are few and far between.

According to labour laws in Karnataka, any workplace with more than 50 female employees is required to provide a creche facility. Some corporate companies and tech parks have adhered to this rule, but the same cannot be said for the private sector and government offices. The 2021-22 Budget under the previous BJP government announced that two government offices in each district would establish creches to support working parents.

In response to an RTI filed by The Hindu, the Women and Child Development Department said 30 creches were set up across the State in 2021-22, followed by 59 in 2022-23, and 60 in 2023-24. They are located in the offices of District Commissioners or Chief Electoral Officers and managed by Stree Shakti groups or NGOs.

In Bengaluru Urban district, three creches have been set up — one in the M.S. Building, another in the Police Commissioner’s office, and a third in Banashankari. These facilities accommodate up to 25 children aged six months to six years for a nominal fee of ₹200 per month. They are open to both government employees and those working in the private sector, including daily wage workers.

Two of these creches are located within a six-kilometre radius of Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru’s central hub of government offices. Besides these, similar facilities are available in the Accountant General’s Office, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company corporate office, and the High Court, though these are restricted to employees of those institutions.