The holiday mood is setting in the Punjab Government, courtesy the festive season. If a state Government employee takes a three-day leave, he can stretch it to a nine-day break due to the many holidays in between.

Dussehra falls on September 28 (Monday), making it a three-day off with September 27 and 26 being Saturday and Sunday. Similarly, Friday (October 2) is Gandhi Jayanti and October 3 and 4 are weekends. If state employees take three holidays on September 29 and 30 and October 1 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), they can manage a nine-day break. Already many police and civil officers have taken these three days off to make an extended vacation.

A senior official said, “I have taken three days off and I am going to Rajasthan to meet my family.”

In this entire year, Punjab government employees are likely to work for about 180 days only as government offices are closed for 126 days, including Saturdays and Sundays, in Punjab.

Besides, there are casual leaves of 10 to 20 days, depending on the service tenure. They are also entitled to 40 days of privilege and medical leaves in a year. Besides, the government also announced half-day work four or five times for religious processions.

This year government holidays are mostly on Fridays or Mondays, making it an extended weekend—-November 2 (Monday) is Martyrdom Day of Guru Teg Bahadur, Christmas (Friday) and Id-Ul-Fitr was on September 21 (Monday). Of the 31 holiday declared by the state government this year, 16 fell either on Friday or Monday.