At a time when Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy says he does not believe in work-life balance and advocates a 72-hour work week, Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons on Friday that seeks to protect employees from demands to work after hours.
Supriya Sule introduced “The Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025”, which aims to “promote a better quality of life and a healthier work-life balance by reducing the burnout caused by today’s digital culture”.
The bill was first introduced on 28 October 2019.
What is ‘Right to Disconnect Bill 2025’ introduced in Lok Sabha? Mint explains in 10 simple points:
1. A private member account is provided to each employee the right to refuse to receive calls and emails outside working hours. “Every employee has the right to break working hours,” he says.
2. Under the bill, the “right to disconnect” means that while an employer can contact a worker after hours, the employee is not required to answer or shall have the right to refuse to accept such calls
3. However, if the employee chooses to respond, he or she will be entitled to overtime pay “as may be prescribed,” the bill says. It states that every employee working outside working hours who mutually agree on this is entitled overtime allowances in the amount of regular wages.
4. It further stipulated that if an employee refuses to answer any call during non-working hours, that is not be subject to any disciplinary action by the employer.
5. However, the draft law provides that an employer may contact any employee by telecommunication, video call, message, e-mail or other form of communication outside working hours, for a mutually agreed period by this employee and the employer.
6. It also suggests that they should be provided by the respective government consulting services for employees which will help them maintain a work-life balance.
7. The proposal also calls for the establishment of “digital detox centers” and provide citizens with “digital detox advisory services” for the reasonable personal use of digital and communication tools.
8. “The Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025” is trying to get through penalty of 1 percent from the total remuneration of its employees at entities (companies or companies) for non-compliance with the provisions of the draft law.
The work-life balance debate
The Right to Disconnect Act comes at a time when telecommuting, digital communications and an “on-call culture” have proliferated.
In recent years, the work-life balance debate has come to the fore not only on social media and among GenZs, but also among industry leaders. Here’s what they said.
In 2023, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy sparked a massive debate by advocating a 70-hour week.
A year later, Murthy stood by his statement, telling CNBC-TV18 at the Global Leadership Summit in Mumbai, “I don’t believe in work-life balance… I haven’t changed my mind; I’ll take that to my grave.”
Later, Larsen and the chairman of Toubro, SN Subrahmanyan, said he regretted not letting the employees work on Sundays. He promoted the narrative of a 90-hour work week that people should adhere to in order to be “on top of the world”.
“I’m sorry I can’t make you work on Sunday. If I can make you work on Sunday, I’ll be happier because I work on Sunday,” the L&T executive was heard to say in an undated video that appeared on social media platform Reddit.
“What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife?” Subrahmanyan asked and said, “Come, come to the office and start working.”
Meanwhile, Adani Group founder and chairman Gautam Adani was also seen discussing work-life balance. The billionaire said that if one spends eight hours with the family, “biwi bhaag jaayegi” (the husband will leave).
He also said that work-life balance is maintained when you do the things you love to do, Mint reported earlier.
“Your work-life balance should not be imposed on me or vice versa,” Adani said, stressing that focusing on someone else’s work-life balance strategy may not be appropriate.
Ola Electric CEO Bhavish Aggarwal also backed the long-hours narrative, saying the concept of having Saturday and Sunday as a holiday was a “Western import” brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
“In India we never had Saturdays and Sundays, we had a lunar calendar and we had holidays based on that,” Aggarwal said. “We had one or two days a month,” he said.
Another viral comment on work-life balance came from Shark Tank India judge and Managing Director – India Business of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Namita Thapar.
Thapar pointed out that the performance and work culture of paid employees cannot be compared to that of founders.
“It’s different for employees,” Namita Thapar said on the Humans of Bombay podcast. “This is bullshit. Excuse my language. I totally disagree,” she said.
