The average salaried class must be over the moon for having a two-day weekend throughout the summers as holidays are all they crave for. Apart from them, though, the supporters are far and few, as most of the trade bodies have lamented the governments decision to announce two weekly holidays and early market closures.
The extended weekend has resulted from the plain fact that Pakistan continues to face an unrelenting energy crisis. Not finding any other avenue, the government thought it would be easy to replay the tried and tested tactic of grating more leisure days for a country that can hardly afford to relax.
There is no denying that Pakistan needs to adopt energy conservation measures as the summers approach and the electricity demand-supply gap widens. But how much exactly will the Saturday holiday save is the question. Estimates suggest it would be in the range of 300-400 MW - which could at best reduce the load shedding duration by an hour - given the acute shortage that has already crossed 4,000 MW.
The closure of banks and related government offices would naturally mean delays in completing assignments in time - a point that has irked many export-oriented industries. While there is absolutely no doubt, business activities will be affected to a certain degree as banks dealings will suffer and create a clog for the next working day - the traders concerns seem to be a bit exaggerated when they say the extended weekend would halt all business activities.
The decision of daylight saving should be welcomed though, as it only makes sense to make full use of the long daylight in summers - a practice observed in many parts of the world. The market associations are irked by decision of early market closures citing that it would cost them Rs400-500 million on a daily basis.
It must be kept in mind that late hour shopping is the norm in the urban centres of the country, and asking the markets to shut at 8 oclock would severely hamper the activities. "It is more of a cultural thing, to make people shop before the sunset the government should continue the practice throughout the year, otherwise it would continue to affect businesses," said a Karachi market association representative on condition of anonymity.
Keeping the infrastructure and circular debt issues aside, the government could have worked seriously on the CFL bulb scheme, which was highly recommended by the ADB and could have saved 1,200 MW - much more than what would be saved after this exercise. It is certainly not worth the pain.
The governments fault in the episode lies with the fact that it has hardly made any concrete progress in three years towards more suitable and workable solutions. Extended weekends and early market closures are all short-term fixes, which do little towards addressing the core issues. Just saying "we have no magic wand" would do little good as this approach will give rise to more woes.