IT professional Sangeeta Jha quit her job, unable to cope with the guilt of having to keep her seven-year-old son in her car for more than an hour every evening while she finished her work in office.

Sangeeta is not alone in her distress. Most working couples in the city miss having a daycare facility at work - a common enough part of corporate infrastructure in several other metros - and have to depend on private creches instead.

Lifeline

Rajarhat residents Pooja and Amit Kothari feel blessed to have a 'good creche' in their locality. 'There is no dearth of creches and daycare centres in the city now but every parent wants a good one that offers the right kind of food, secured environment and meaningful activities to keep a child happy and engaged,' said Amit, whose three-year-old son goes to Mongrace Montessori House and Day Care Centre.

Mongrace set up its Rajarhat branch in 2010 to cater to the rising demands of techie parents. The management says 90 per cent of the 30 kids staying at the daycare centre are children of IT employees. Such is the demand that the centre has a 20-kid-long waiting list. 'So many parents approach us, but we cannot accommodate more than 30, given the facilities available. So a good number of parents are in queue, but rarely does a vacancy arise,' said Chandrika Ramakrishnan, the principal.

With a large play area, a computer lab, healthy food and several activity classes - all for Rs 5,700 a month - Mongrace has parents like the Kotharis satisfied. 'It's safe as even the teachers here use swipe cards to go in. That impressed us,' said Amit. There are three adults who look after the kids at Mongrace, besides teachers for various activities.

The little ones, too, seem to love it. 'I like to come here for the big garden. I love playing there with my friends,' smiled Ankur Ghosal, a Class I student of DPS Newtown, pointing to a spacious terrace. Srijani Bhattacharya, a Class II student of the same school, has 'many friends' she has fun with.

But even private creches pose a problem - most of them shut down at 7pm. 'My wife, who works in the IT sector, and I take turns to drop and pick up our son. It's good that I have a business of my own, or else it would have been tough to collect our child on time everyday.'

Many are not as fortunate. Somnath Roy and his wife Suhasini are both busy professionals and there have been several occasions when they have reached late to take their three-year-old daughter home from Mongrace. 'We try our best but there have been times when we got late. Though the creche has never complained we feel terrible as parents and worried, too, as our child is waiting while her friends are gone. While I wish creches were open till 9, it is also not fair on the child to be left outside for so long,' he said.

Sangeeta had to quit her IT job because on most days work stretched till 9.30pm, well beyond the creche's closing hour. 'I felt guilty keeping my son with the driver in the car. I had no option but to quit,' said Sangeeta, who is now planning to leave the city.

Tech care

Bubble Blue, a daycare facility that has tie-ups with several IT firms in Rajarhat and Sector V, realises the need for offering services for longer. To help parents working on late shifts, the creche remains open till 8pm. 'Even then there have been instances of guardians turning up late. It would have been ideal if we could keep our daycare centres open longer. But given the resources available, our hands are tied,' said Nabonita Bose Mukherjee, who runs Bubble Blue.

The creche has a branch each at Salt Lake and Rajarhat. 'The demand for creche service has gone up so much over the past two years that we had to shift our Rajarhat centre (set up in 2010) to a bigger facility. The new space boasts 7,000sq feet area, enabling us to accommodate more kids. The Salt Lake branch has been around for seven years,' Mukherjee said. Her creche has tie-ups with companies such as IBM, TCS, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra and Capgemini. Fee packages range from Rs 16,000 to Rs 23,000 annually depending on the age (six months to over four years) of the child and time spent at the creche.

But even Mukherjee admits it would have been so much more convenient for parents if she could open daycare centres at offices. 'That way the parents would be near the kids too. But we have not been approached by any company in Calcutta for corporate daycare,' she said.

Smiles for some

One company that holds out hope is Tata Steel, whose in-house creche Muskaan has literally been bringing smiles to the faces of women employees and their children.

A bright and happy play area with toys and colourful slides, seesaws and walls with animal motifs along with two adjacent rooms, where children can eat and rest, sprawled over 3,000sq feet space on the ground floor of Tata Centre on Jawaharlal Nehru Road. At Rs 3,200 a month (Rs 175 per day), Tata employees can keep their children at the creche from 9am to 7pm on weekdays and till 3pm on Saturdays.

A brainchild of Atrayee Sanyal, the chief of marketing and sales for branded products, Muskaan opened doors in March 2013 after a two-year-long 'creche crusade' by the mother of two. 'I realised how tough it is for working mothers to juggle home and office. I faced the problem too. Not all are fortunate to have parental support or a good help at home. I personally didn't. My husband and I had a demanding job that required travelling too. My son was falling ill. I realised the importance of having an in-house creche at an affordable rate,' said Sanyal, who claims it is the city's first corporate daycare facility. 'We started with only five children but now the number has gone up to 14. The creche can accommodate up to 20 kids. The youngest is only six months old and the eldest six years.'

Company spokespersons say the creche has also helped check attrition rate among women employees. 'We encourage mothers to wrap up work by 7pm since that's the closing time for the creche. Besides they can check on their kids or nurse them anytime while at work. Even fathers have started keeping kids here,' Sanyal said. The help-child ratio at the creche is 1:3 at present.

Amrita Juthani, working with the sales and marketing division of Tata Steel, has been keeping her four-year-old son Aarav at Muskaan since Day I and says it has given her 'peace of mind'. 'I can work happily knowing my child is near me and well looked after. A help is not always the best option. Working with a peaceful mind is bound to raise productivity,' Amrita said.

Story elsewhere

Such 'peace' is not so rare for working mommies in other metros. Aditya Khurana, the director of The Little Company, started with a single creche and three children in Bandra, Mumbai, in 2004. Khurana runs 11 daycare centres in Mumbai and Delhi-Gurgaon region, eight of them on office premises of clients such as Godrej, L'Oreal, Johnson and Johnson, Genpact, Airtel and Hindustan Unilever, he said.

'An in-house creche benefits all - children, parents/employees and employers. Children, as they get access to a high-quality childcare environment. Parents/employees can work at ease knowing their children are safe and a few steps away. Corporates benefit too as they now have an employee who is happy and in no rush to go home,' said Khurana, who is planning set up more centres in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi-NCR but doesn't have Calcutta on his radar yet. 'For that, corporates have to approach us.'

Home is...

Madhura Bhattacharya, the principal of Dolna school and creche - one of the earliest in the city - feels the need for creches is at an all-time high with couples working late. 'A creche provides a kind of security that no home environment can for children of working parents. While a child is well supervised, it is also safer for teenagers to stay with other kids in a creche rather than alone at home, given the rise in crime rate. At our creche, kids and teenagers can stay from 9.30am to 6.30pm,' she said.

Established in 1971, the Kasba creche at present has nearly 400 students, many of them coming from as far as Behala or even Sonarpur. At Dolna, the minimum age for admission is three months and one can avail themselves of the facility till 18 years. 'The most important thing is that children here learn how to share, love and be independent in a safe atmosphere,' said the principal.

When former teachers Rina Mukherjee and Anusheela Dutta opened Happy Hours in Tollygunge in February last year, they wanted to recreate the home atmosphere for children of working couples. 'I saw my grandchild not wanting to go to her creche after school in Mumbai. I realised every child wants to relax in a loving environment after school. Thus we decided to give just that to the kids here,' said Dutta.

So from a glass of nimbupaani on summer afternoons to storytelling sessions, the kids get all the grandmotherly love here. 'We have been teachers for a long time, so we know the right way of grooming kids. A child left with a help may not get that care,' Mukherjee said.

The charges are Rs 3,500 for four hours (including meals that can also be customised) and Rs 5,500 beyond that but here, too, the hours are from 9.30am to 7pm.

Anuradha Dash, an IT sector employee who keeps her six-year-old daughter Suvangi at Happy Hours, chose this creche for its convenient location and cultured environment. 'A good creche near the house is a blessing. Besides Happy Hours is run by former teachers who can groom a child well. I know my child is in good hands after school and is learning to share and socialise with other kids,' she said.

Do you miss a creche at your office? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com