Due to Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown was imposed on not just Indians, but for most people of the world. Off course, it was rightly intended to curb spread of virus. Everyone knew the fallout of those actions, economic hard landing and pain for people.
Government provides services of education, water, health, sanitation, electricity, justice, agriculture, passport, visa and many more. During lockdown, people didn’t just lose jobs & livelihoods, they were deprived of many of these services. However, taxes on Goods and Services continued.
During lockdown, there were discussions on public foras, about how to recover lost ground. One of the suggestion was that, post lockdown, employees might have to work on Sundays or extra time to recoup the losses of lockdown period. Don’t know, whether Government or PSU employees were considered for the same.
Last couple of months, Indian economy has started crawling back to normalcy, with calibrated unlock X.0 processes across India. This financial year, India has almost lost 6 months of productivity corresponding to GDP of the same period. This was humongous loss for the country.
Given this backdrop, it was prudent for all Governments, PSU to ensure less holidays and more work. However, we see that Dussehra festival, which was on Sunday, holiday for which, is given on Monday, by many Governments and PSUs.
Is it the fault of our Hindu Calendar, that it is not in sync with Gregorian calendar followed by the world for weekly holidays?
Looks like few Governments feel sorry for their pampered employees, having lost a rightful holiday, for a festival happened to be on Sunday.
Loss of working days means loss of production, delay in Government services and loss to economy, as a whole.
This is something exactly opposite, to what is required to be done in desperate times.
With 2020 working day calendar already disrupted by Covid-19, was there a need of additional holiday ? It is anybody’s guess !
