The Japanese must be crazy. There were public protests recently when their Government wanted to add a fourth national holiday to the three they already have every year. But in India, it's party time. Thanks to the late Dr Ambedkar, more than a hundred years after his birth, we have a fresh holiday on April 14, by Government fiat. So this year, bureaucrats and babus alike could go on a nine-day sabbatical by the simple expedient of taking casual leave on April 15 and 17. Government jobs are proverbially sinecures and you more or less achieve nirvana the day you land one. Work in most Government offices, public sector undertakings and banks more or less ground to a halt for a whole working week. But people were beginning to switch off and relax in anticipation of the holidays to come right from Friday afternoon, and were still pretty relaxed on the forenoon of the Monday they returned to work. As a nation, we have an obsession about holidays, amply demonstrated by our proclivity to declare a few at the drop of a hat. After all, we are a secular and democratic nation and we must please every caste and creed. If nothing else is available, holidays make for excellent sops. No Government or politician wants to lag behind in pursuing such populist measures. And the pantheon of historical figures so remembered grows. We have holidays on the birthdays of Netaji and Dr Ambedkar, and there are many more to come.

Going to work -- especially on time -- is the bete noire of a Government babu. Work is treated with ennui, as a burden or punishment. It may be true that hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance? In 1997, the Government has issued a list of 17 gazetted holidays. Mercifully, four of them fall on Sundays, but there's more to come. There is a list of 26 restricted holidays, for instance. Every employee is allowed to select two of those. Then there are 12 days of casual leave, 15 days of medical leave and a full month in earned leave. Here's how the figures work out: for the Government servant, the working year consists of just 186 days. Mind you, we are not factoring in maternity leave, other absences and man-hours lost because people come in an hour late and leave half an hour early. One is reminded of Lord Castlerosse's retort when he was criticised for being continually late for work: "But think how early I leave!"

Gross indiscipline in the form of lack of punctuality is so pervasive in Government offices and banks that it is simply accepted as something as inevitable as death and taxes. The loss of man-hours on working days is as sacrilegious as the number of declared holidays. If only everyone ensured punctuality and a good work culture, eight hours of work five days a week would be more than adequate. Productivity would rise by 30-40 per cent.

The Fifth Pay Commission, concerned about the lack of productivity and loss of working hours, has therefore recommended that the Government revert to a six-day week. It has also made other far-reaching recommendations, like reducing the number of gazetted holidays from 17 to three. Besides, no public holiday is to be declared on the death of anyone other than the incumbent President and Prime Minister. The Commission has worked out that this would add 60 working days every year. In order to check the unaccounted loss of working hours due to lack of punctuality, it has also recommended that all employees, right up to the Cabinet Secretary, be made to punch the clock. It is reported that the Supreme Court has declined to entertain H.D. Shourie's writ petition against the burgeoning list of holidays, so there appears to be little chance of legal intervention. True, political expediency demands that every section, every vote bank be propitiated. but somewhere down the line one party, or one Government, will have to bell the cat.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.