UP plans to cut holidays, starting with schools

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on April 14 asked officials of the northern Indian state to reduce school holidays from 220 to 120.

This is the first step in his efforts to get works done in a state where a government employee enjoys holiday almost every second day.

Adityanath, who has held closed-meetings with officials over the past few weeks, disapproved 40 holidays a year for government workers, more than twice the number allowed elsewhere in the country. Added to this is the number of weekends and other leaves available to an employee.

“There should be no holidays in schools on birth anniversaries of great personalities. Instead special two-hour program should be held to teach students about them,” Adityanath reportedly told the officials.

The chief minister wants children to use those days to learn about the personalities and their contribution for the country.

“There will be no discrimination and injustice in this government rule,” he told a function to mark the 126th birth anniversary of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The federal government declared the day a nationwide holiday following sustained campaign by Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram back in the 1990s.

Adityanath’s insistence on pruning the holiday list is departs from the accepted practice of the previous Samajwadi Party government to use holidays to reach out to a particular community, ndtv.com reported.

Thus came holiday for birth anniversary of Kapoori Thakur, a former chief minister of neighboring Bihar, to reach out to the barber caste. Parashuram Jayanti was for the Brahmins, former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar Jayanti for the Thakurs, Acharya Narendra Dev for the Kayasthas, Hazrat Ali for Shia Muslims and Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz for the Sunni.

The federal government has tried several times in the past to reduce the number of compulsory holidays. The Fifth Pay Commission in the 1990s and the Sixth Pay Commission ten days later had recommended reducing compulsory gazatted holidays from the existing 17.

But the recommendation was promptly rejected. The Seventh Pay said there was no harm in continuing with these holidays.