ACCORDING to reports, the Federal Government is, once again, considering a proposal to abolish Saturday as an off-day and revert back to a six-day week. The Cabinet Division is reported to have sought recommendations from other ministries and divisions in this regard and a final decision would be taken by the Federal Cabinet.
It is a matter of shame that for over a decade we have been in a state of confusion about the issue of having one or two weekly holidays. Previously, we were caught up in a debate whether the country should have Sunday or Friday as a weekly holiday. Pakistan opted Sunday as a weekly holiday after independence but the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who succumbed to pressure from the religious right, changed it to Friday, a decision, which was reversed by Mian Nawaz Sharif. The concept of two weekly holidays was introduced with the objective of saving energy and official resources but no such benefit accrued as official vehicles were misused for two days a week by senior officials and their families. No doubt, two weekly holidays is a luxury that the poor country cannot afford and therefore, as head of the coalition government PM Shehbaz Sharif announced that Saturday would no longer be observed as a weekly holiday but he had to review his decision under pressure of shirk work bureaucracy. Based on that bitter experience, there is a big question mark about the ability of the government to do so if finally a decision is taken to abolish Saturday as a holiday. There is, however, no logic to continue with two holidays at the federal level when the country’s largest province – Punjab – works six day a week.
