Holiday cut for Punjab employees?
Chitleen K Sethi
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 26
Known the world over for its “laid back” style of functioning, the Punjab government could certainly do with some holiday pinching. Highly placed sources in the government have hinted at a reduction in the number of holidays that the employees enjoy in the state.

Exactly how many holidays would be cut off from the calender is still anyone’s guess. Though the Tribune has, however, been told that the government has undertaken a major exercise to restructure the set of holidays, trimming it down to the barest possible needed.

Among the host of documents being consulted by the government for streamlining is a remarkable notification dated October 6, 1943! In the pre-Independence days, there were only 18 general holidays across the year other than the 52 Sundays. Saturdays were all working days.

Compare this with the situation in 2009. The number of holidays, excluding the 52 Sundays and the 52 Saturdays, is now 30. This means 134 days of “chutti” for Punjab government employees.

The common-for-all holidays in 1943 included the New Year’s Day and King Emperor’s birthday on June 2. June 30 was a bank holiday. Christian holidays included Good Friday and two days of Christmas, the Hindu holidays were Basant Panchami, Baisakhi, Janamashtami, Dussehra and Diwali. The Sikh holidays were the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev and birthday of Guru Gobind Singh. The Muslim holidays included Muharram, Id-I-Milad, Shab-I -Barat Id -ul-fitr and Id-ul-Zuha. All these holidays were for every employee across the state.

More interesting was the fact that back then, the other holidays were district specific. These were called the “local holidays” and were equal in number for every district.

Shahidi divas of Guru Arjan Dev was a holiday for employees working in Hisar and Ambala. The Guga fair was a holiday in Hisar as was the Durga Ashtami. In Karnal, the days of the Pehowa fair and the Punkha fair were holidays, while in Rohtak, Sankrant was a holiday for employees. In Ambala, the Lakhi Shah fair was a holiday. In Simla, Ram Naumi, Solan fair and a buffalo fair day were holidays.

Lohri was a holiday only in Kangra, Dharamsala, Nurpur and Kulu. The Chintpurni fair was a holiday in Hoshiarpur. In Shaikhupura, the day following Guru Nanak’s birthday was also a holiday while the birthday of Guru Ram Das was a holiday only in Amritsar.

Hola Mohalla was a holiday in Amritsar, Lahore, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Ludhiana, Sialkot, Lyallpur, Gujranwala and Ambala. In some other districts of the undivided Punjab, horse fairs were days of holidays.

When contacted, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who is among those revamping the holiday system, said there was a need to reduce the number of holidays. “Had Bhagat Singh been alive today, he would have preferred Punjabis to work even on Sundays,” he said.