Holiday culture killing Indian productivity

Revel, it is party time honey! Put it down to mid-April madness whereby India seems to be in perpetual holiday mode. All one needs is an excuse and before one can blink, a holiday is ours for the asking. It comes in various forms; national, restricted, religious, regional, birth and death anniversaries et al.

Perhaps it has something to do with our laidback attitude dictated by a ‘don’t care a damn’ and ‘chalta hai’ thinking! Think. Out of 365 days, the Government works five days a week. This translates into 104 week-end holidays, three National Holidays, 14 Gazette holidays and two restricted holidays.

Further, babus are entitled to 12 days’ casual, 20 days’ half pay, 30 days’ earned leaves and 56 medical offs. A grand total of 249 days of relaxation, leaving just 116 working days! For women there is an additional 90 days of maternity leave and two years of child care leave.

This is not the only instance of non-work trend. Of the eight hours normal working day with a one-hour lunch break in Government offices, tea-time begins from the moment an employee enters his office and continues every half hour till the clock strikes pack-up time. And yet, there is no dearth of overtime!

There are also those with proclaimed aversion to work. They may be found in a canteen corner, pontificating on national affairs over long lunch sojourns extending over two long hours, presiding over unscheduled coffee breaks or at the “paan ki dukaan.”

The title for the perennial merry makers is reserved for our Parliamentarians. Besides national and gazette holidays, our MPs are entitled to another 36 restricted chuttis. But even this is not enough for them for in their collective wisdom, our Right Honourables gave themselves a ‘break’ from the winter session.

Take Holi and Ram Navami while the hoi polloi got one day off our jan sevaks treated themselves to a two-day break with the weekly holiday. So what it is crores of tax payers’ money down the sewage drain!

Nobody stands testimony to our abysmal work ethics than our judiciary. With over lakhs of cases pending, shockingly, the Supreme Court works for 193 days, High Courts for 210 and trial courts for 245 days a year. It is so unlike the US Supreme Court, which does not have a yearly vacation and hearings are limited to a few months.

Questionably, can a poor nation afford this luxury of aaram, aaram and more aaram? What about the crores lost in trading when banks and markets shut down? The culprit is none other than our bankrupt politicians who, in a burst of competitive populism, announce holidays as a sop to their vote-banks.

God forbid when national leaders die, the government promptly turns these grave occasions into a farce by declaring a holiday. True, none can fault the desire to break free from the rough and tumble of contemporary existence. However, as the saying goes there are no free lunches in life. Every holiday costs the exchequer around Rs 1,000 crore by way of industrial loss and business transactions.

Why is it that nobody seems to think about this problem and come up with a solution? Why, for instance, can’t the government and banks adopt the principle most private companies follow, of instituting sectional holidays or allowing compensatory offs? In fact, over the years many committees and commissions have tried to curtail the holiday list but to no avail.

Recall, the Administrative Reform Commission practical suggestion in 1971 declaring holidays on both Republic Day and Independency Day as unnecessary since both had similar significance, was trashed.

The demand for more leisure augurs well in the affluent West where there is already a big push for a three-day week and a national concern over leisure future. Not so in India. Instead of aping the West in this why aren’t we adopting their niggardliness in declaring national holidays? In the US, there are no “national” holidays but eight federal holidays. However, each State can declare its own holidays. Britain has a five-day week and eight-and-a-half days of public and ‘privilege’ holidays.

In Germany, Government offices observe 14 holidays a year, besides the week-end. A Government official is entitled to a holiday varying from three to six weeks a year depending on his age. Japan has 12 public holidays. Government employees are entitled to 20 days yearly earned leave while in China it is just five days of hard work, not work with thick layers of leisure and absenteeism, as in India.

Alas, we Indians yearn for El Dorado but are not prepared to lift a finger for it. Time now to decide: Do we mean business? Should a Government give itself a long week-end, if the five-day week fails to boost productivity, ensure punctuality and regular attendance? Can we afford to entertain each other all the time? And if one takes into consideration the days lost because of strikes for increase in salaries, the picture will become deplorably worse. Well, it is time for a ‘workable’ rethink on the entire structure! (INFA)

By Poonam I Kaushish