Commercial surrogacy was legalised in India in 2002. India has around 3,000 surrogacy clinics. This increased medical tourism to India. According to a 2012 report by Confederation of Indian Industries the income by surrogacy is $2 billion per year. But since there are no strict regulations regarding surrogacy in India which gave rise to a lot of problems. Some of them being exploitation of surrogate mothers, abandonment of surrogate child and Embryo rackets.
Thus, the Law Commission of India highlighted need for a law to regulate surrogacy and in its 208th report it proposed to stop commercial surrogacy completely. This is because due to lack of legal framework and interference of middlemen some of the surrogate mothers did not have any knowledge of the contract or agreement of surrogacy or were paid less than what was promised.
So after the recommendation of Law Commission of India notification was put out by the Government of India in 2015 where surrogacy was banned for foreigners. In 2016 the surrogacy regulation bill was passed in Lok Sabha. But the bill lapsed in 2019 when the parliament disolved. After this the Surrogacy Regulation Bill 2019 was brought by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This bill was brought in April 2019 in the Lok Sabha and was passed in August 2019. The bell is still pending in the Rajya Sabha because it was sent to a committee for further discussions.
This bill states that Surrogacy Boards will be created in both Central and state levels. Commercial surrogacy is not allowed, it allows only ethical altruistic surrogacy. Only Indian couples with minimum 5 years of marriage are eligible to go for surrogacy. For this they need a certificate which will be a proof of them be medically infertile. They will also have to give undertaking in which they will have to state that they will not abandon the child out of surrogacy in any condition. Sec selection will be illegal. As for the surrogate mother she should be a close relative of the couple. She should be between the age of 25 to 35 having a child of a own and should also not have been a surrogate mother before. She will also get an insurance coverage which will be valid till some time after delivery. The Surrogacy clinics have to be compulsorily registered.
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