Billion-Dollar holiday

State and city take paid leave and trot off on an extended weekend as industry suffers

State and city take paid leave and trot off on an extended weekend as industry suffers

On October 1, acting on the advice of the Election Commission, the state labour commissioner Arvind Kumar issued orders to all commercial establishments to give their employees a paid holiday to ensure better voter turnout.

Yesterday, after most businesses reported a substantial drop in attendance and poor voter turnout of just 52 per cent in the city, angry corporates complained the resultant loss in business was crippling.

'Loss to economy'

Ravi Ghai, CMD, Intercontinental Hotel, reacted furiously, "Voting definitely does not warrant shutting business for an entire day.
u00a0
This is a loss to the economy and a loss to the exchequer." Sanjiv Saran Mehra, CEO, Saran Sports, called it, "a ridiculous decision, tantamount to coercing people to cast their vote."

Missing The Queue: The scene at a Worli poll booth yesterday. The voter turnout in Mumbai was just 52 per cent.

Ashwini Kakkar, vice-chairman, Mercury Travels, said authorities could have explored the middle path and added, "While we continue giving people more facilities to vote, we are actually seeing the polling per cent drop.

I would think an hour or two hours off is enough. An innovative way may be to extend the voting hours to 10 pm, which would cost less to the nation than a full-day closure."

'Loss in crores'

Dinyar Jamshedji, CMD, Noble Paints, added, "I kept my factory and office open yesterday and workers took time off to vote. But most people have already taken Monday off, and gone away on holiday. This means a loss in crores."

There are nearly 5.5 lakh shops and establishments in Mumbai and the suburbs. With Diwali a few days on, sales are brisk and sources say each shop suffered an estimated loss of Rs 1,000 for four hours.

Add salaries of people who did not turn up on an average, a shop attendant earns between Rs 150 and Rs 200 per day with up to 10 attendants in a shop.

"When you add up the figures across the industry, it's a loss of Rs 100 crore, at least! And at the end, you have a low voter turnout," said Viren Shah, president, Federation of Retail Traders and Welfare Association.

Sushil Jiwarajka, chairman, Western Regional Council, FICCI, said, "Most hotels in Lonavala and Khandala were packed.

It's Over: Election officials with EVMs after voting for the Assembly election ended yesterday.

The whole idea of a paid holiday is counter-productive. Instead, corporate heads should have been told to ensure employees vote."

Kishore Biyani, head honcho, Pantaloon, rounded off corporate angst with similar sentiments. "Closing down establishments does not help anybody.

Instead, corporates should have been told to encourage their people to vote it would have been a better way of handling things."

Voices

It is very difficult to u00a0make an exact assessment of the loss incurred, but it is safe to say, given the daily turnover of u00a0business houses, that it would run into thousands of crores.u00a0
Sushil Jiwarajka, Chairman, FICCI

Shutting down of establishments has not served the purpose of getting more voters u00a0this assembly election. The state is already in debt u00a0and making October 13, a paid holiday has further added to their woes. u00a0Rs 8 crore is the u00a0estimated loss to the cinema.u00a0
R K Vidhani, President of the Cinema Owners and Exhibitors Association of India
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The initiative taken by the labour department has not gone down well with us. They should have thought of something else to get people to the polling booths. I think they need to first emphasise on the awareness and then on the paid holiday concept.
Shreesh Misra, General manager of Orchid City Center Mall, Mumbai Central

People did not take the paid holiday in the right spirit. The ministry u00a0should have kept half u00a0day for people, rather u00a0than give them a holiday
Santosh Shetty, Secretary, Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association

Poll Percentage

State polling percentage in the last five assembly elections
2004: 63.44%
1999: 60.95%
1995: 71.69%
1990: 62.26%
1985: 59.17%
Source: Election Commission of India

35
Percentage loss to malls

30
Percentage loss to restaurants

28
Special squads formed to u00a0conduct surprise checks to keep an eye on establishments not adhering to the paid holiday dictat

60%
Voter turnout in state, lowest in 20 yrs

Rs 1000cr+
Estimated loss to industry, excluding malls, cinema houses, hotels and restaurants etc

Inputs by Urvashi Seth and Varun Singh