Weekly holiday
We all know that we are a poor third world country which is dependent on foreign aid and donations for its survival. However, when we look into the government calendar of holidays, it gives us a different picture of our socio-economic condition. It seems that we are an affluent nation!
The number of yearly holidays we enjoy does not make sense for a struggling economy like ours.
Just before the official Eid holidays, the city witnessed a huge crowd leaving Dhaka from 25 September. Tens of thousands of people left the capital to celebrate Eid with their near and dear ones, though Eid was officially celebrated on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th October. Which left the country and its economy in a passive state till the 10th of October as most of the people, including government and bank employees, came back to the capital on and around 9 October after celebrating the Durga Puja festival holidays.
Though officially the offices reopened on 5 October, it was evident that employees of different government offices were no way in the mood to work and the reluctance continued till October 9. I am sure if a survey is carried out from 25 September till 9 October (15days) on attendance and active working hours at the offices, the figure which will come in black and white will be alarming in the context of our economy.
Also according to different newspapers, most of the employees took two days' leave during the 02 working days on September 2 and 3 to enjoy a 10-day Eid vacation this year. As a poor underdeveloped country, can we really have the luxury of having 07 extra days out of the designated holidays?
In a calendar year, a total of 14 days are allocated as holidays by the government out of the 365 days and if we add up the weekly holidays which are Fridays and Saturdays, we will end up losing another 96 days with no work. On top of that, we lose 21-25 days of holidays for different occasions such as 21st February, 16 December, Independence Day on March 26 and Shab-e-Barat, Durga Puja, Bengali New Year's Day etc.
We have a total of 25 government listed holidays in a calendar year apart from the 96 weekends and if we add Sundays where no international business takes place, we need to add another 48 days to the existing list of non-productive days in our working/financial calendar. After deducting all the holidays and the non-working days we actually get 200 working days or roughly 2,000 hours in a calendar year of productive work in the government and private sector offices. Since Sundays are internationally closed worldwide, we have literally no work as far as international correspondence and communications are concerned. Our economy is dependent on export trade and keeping the offices open on Sundays does note make any sense, other than wasting valuable electricity.
Will our government look into the list of holidays sincerely and revise the holiday list including the weekly holidays. I am a Muslim and I do offer prayers like most of the Bangladeshi Muslims do on Friday which takes 15-20 minutes and does not require the whole day.
Will our government consider shifting the weekly holiday to Sunday, instead of Friday and Saturday?
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