Replacing 52 Sundays holiday in a year with 52 total holidays for major festivals and national pride days

I would like to express my view regarding the government’s decision to implement a two-day week holiday (Saturday and Sunday), whereas earlier there was only one weekly holiday on Saturday. I think instead of providing 52 Sundays as additional holidays, the Government could consider using those 52 days—or at least around 40 days—as mandatory public holidays in both the private and public sector for festivals and important national occasions, because Nepal is a country rich in culture and has many festivals Due to the growing corporate work culture, many people have stopped celebrating traditional festivals and jatras that were widely observed in the past. Today, many parents cannot celebrate festivals with their children because child schools may be closed while parents offices remain open on the same day, and people working far from home often miss important family rituals. If this trend continues, many traditions may gradually disappear in the next 20–40 years.

For example, just as people in the hills receive longer holidays during Dashain to spend time with their families. People from terai can use two days of public holiday if given during Chhath where families can gather together once a year without worrying about the office as it would be a public holiday. Similarly, Buddhist communities could properly celebrate Lhosar and Muslim communities and could celebrate Eid with their families if public holidays are provided for all.

In this context, we can also be thankful that Kathmandu became the capital of Nepal and that the Newar community has continued living here, which helped protect and preserve their culture, traditions, and jatras. However, many people from other cultural backgrounds moved to Kathmandu for work opportunities, and as they left their hometowns, their own local festivals, jatras, and traditions have slowly started diminishing.

National pride days such as Democracy Day, Constitution Day, Republic Day, Prithvi Jayanti, New Year, and other important occasions should also be celebrated together by the whole nation to bring Nepalis closer to each other.

Providing around 52 public holidays for festivals, national pride days, and cultural occasions could help strengthen family relationships, preserve traditions, promote patriotism, and increase social harmony in society by decreasing di-vorce to some extent as husband and wife would spend more time celebrating festivals. Such steps would help parents and children spend more meaningful time together and support stronger unity among people across the country in the long term. 🇳🇵🎉👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🤝

This should be implemented in the public and private sector as the private sector only gives 13-14 public holidays in a year.