Ranchi, June 6: The Raghubar Das government has recognised that its women employees could be more productive if they had childcare facilities at their workplaces.

Realising that mothers absent themselves from work most often to take care of children, the state government is proposing crèches at Project Building and Nepal House, where wards from infancy to six years of age of women employees can stay and play.

State personnel, administrative reforms and rajbhasa department has written to women, child development and social security as well as construction departments to set up the two crèches for the children of women employees at both the secretariats.

According to a ballpark figure of the personnel department, between 500 and 700 women employees work in both the secretariats.

"Biometric attendance figures suggest that everyday, out 22 per cent women employees are absent at work. It was worrying," state personnel, administrative reforms and rajbhasa department's secretary Nidhi Khare, a top woman bureaucrat who balances family commitments with work demands, told The Telegraph.

"But, we also know working women are the primary carers of their children and household. That's why we thought of setting up two crèches to start with at both the secretariat buildings," she added.

Khare, a 1992-batch IAS officer who has had stints in Delhi on central deputation, said crèches exist in some offices of the central secretariat departments there with facilities such as toys and books. Experts take good care of the children while their mothers, who are government employees, visit them regularly during their working hours and lunch time, she said, adding they wanted something similar in Jharkhand.

"Women in our workforce form an important part of the government machinery. We want to minimise absenteeism amongst them. Setting up crèches at workplaces would eliminate their biggest worry and help them realise their full potential at work," Khare said.

State women, child development and social security department secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey told The Telegraph they had requested building construction secretary K.K. Soan to provide some space in Project Building to start with to set up one crèche as early as in July. The one at Nepal House would follow.

"We aim to set up the crèche at Project Building from next month. We are in talks with some NGOs and we want to hire some pre-school experts for the job of looking after the children," Choubey said.

The department was going through the provisions of Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme for Children of Working Mothers, which suggest ensuring sleeping facilities, healthcare, supplementary nutrition, immunisation, among others, and sets benchmarks for their proper functioning, Choubey added.

Khare, who said this would open up a new chapter for state employees who were also mothers, added they would introduce crèches at other government offices across the state headquarters in Ranchi, at the level of divisions, districts, sub-divisions and even blocks.