Time to switch to 10 Hours a Day 4 Days a Week Work Pattern

With rising fuel prices many organziations world over are thinking of switching to a 10 hour per day and 4 days per week routine.

Maybe it is time for India to do that too.

By compressing the working hours into 4 days, organizations can completely cut off the consumption of petrol and diesel. Government offices can remain closed during the weekend starting from Friday.

By changing the working hours, the stress on the public transport system will get more evenly divided. With the banks and other commercial establishments like the Stock Exchanges working only partially anyway, their working days and hours need not change. Therefore you will have government staff reporting to work at 8 a.m. instead of 9 and leaving at 6 p.m. instead of 5.

It will require some changes in the way the public transport system works but I am sure it will be well worth the saving that will ensue. There will be other benefits too, like cleaner environment with their being less pollution, better utilization of available resources, community development due to more time being available with people etc.

But the saving will come only if the burden does not shift from the corporations and governments to the individual. In the end if the individual ends up consuming the same amount of petroleum resources then no purpose would have been served.

But it is definitely an option worth pondering.