Pongal Holidays: Central government clears controversies
Posted on: 28/Dec/2017 12:07:52 PM
By releasing clear details about the coming Pongal Holidays, the central government has put an end to the controversies encountered in 2017 Pongal holidays.
On the day, when Pongal is celebrated as ‘Tamizhar thirunaaal’, the ‘harvest festival’ is celebrated in other states of India such as Andhra, Karnataka, Punjab, and others. Even then, the central government did not announce confirmed holiday for Pongal (2017). It had announced Pongal day only as an optional (restricted) holiday. The central government employees working in Tamil Nadu strongly protested against this. Only, the central government withdrew this optional holiday issue.
With the year passing, the time has come for the issue of the list of holidays for the coming year 2018. This was released by the central government yesterday (Wednesday, 27th December). In this list, Pongal has been declared as a clear-cut holiday. This has satisfied the central government employees in Tamil Nadu.
17 festivals and others, including Vinayakar Chathurthi, Vijayadasami, Deepavali, Good Friday, and Miladi Nabi, have been declared as public holidays in this list for 2018.
Further, 18 festival days including Holi, Onam, and Sivarathri have been declared as optional (restricted) holidays.
This list of holidays has been prepared by a special committee comprising of officials from various departments in the Tamil Nadu Region and the Co-ordinated Central Government Employees Welfare Association.
