NEW DELHI: Microsoft India on Friday announced four weeks of paid caregiver leave for employees who are looking after immediate family members with serious health conditions.Family caregiver leave covers care of a spouse/domestic partner, parent/in-law, sibling, grandparent, child, etc. Last year, the company enhanced its maternity leave to 26 weeks and added to it surrogacy and adoption leave.Male employees are eligible for six weeks paternity leave which also covers parenthood through adoption or surrogacy."We want our policies to be inclusive and as empowering as they can be to allow our employees to do what they want to do as their family needs them,” said Microsoft's HR head, Ira Gupta.“And that person doesn't have to be a new-born. So, we wanted to introduce maternity, paternity and caregiver leave." Caregiver leave is breakable and can be used by the employee in any way through the year. Microsoft, which has about 8,000 employees in India—over a quarter of whom are women—offers 20 working days as earned leave, 12 days as sick leave, three days of bereavement leave, besides some public holidays.Consultants said this is a good first step in the direction of keeping people at the workplace , especially women."Elderly care is becoming big in many parts of the world because of lack of good elderly care facilities. It becomes prudent for organisations to offer this kind of a leave to extend to dependent siblings," said Ashok Pamidi, senior director and lead, diversity and inclusion initiatives, Nasscom.