Hyderabad: Fewer techies have planned for a Diwali break since the festival falls mid week. North Indians bachelors working in Hyderabad have gone out of the city as it is a major festival for them, said Mr Sundeep Kumar Makthala, global president, Telangana Information Technology Association. Most South Indians had taken leave for Dasara, which is why not many are taking a longer break for Diwali.
Besides, there is confusion on when Diwali is most offices in the south have declared a holiday for Wednesday while the festival in the state is on October 19. Due to the confusion many thought that they have to take two day offs for Thursday and Friday in order to take a long weekend break to make some travel plans.
Few working professionals are also working on Diwali as the official holiday is declared a day before due to which they are unable to plan a holidays. Though most of the schools declared holiday for Thursday and Friday, families are not able to travel to their native place as few parents are also working on Diwali.
Mr Rana Pratap Bojjam, global vice-president, TITA, said, “Out of 4.25 lakh IT employees around 15 to 18 per cent North Indians have gone out of station. We see large number of employees working in Hyderabad are from Kolkata, Orissa, Bihar, Noida and Delhi most of them prefer taking offs on Diwali.”
Abhiram Pyla a techie from working in Hyderabad said, ‘’I have to drop my plan to go to our native place for this Diwali as we could club our offs because Diwali is falling on mid week. I would have surely gone home for this Diwali if it would have fallen on Friday, but unfortunately this time Diwali is on Thursday and I don’t have much leaves left in my account to take a off for a long weekend trip as I have recently gone home for Dasara festival as well’’.
Mr. Indroneel Dutt, Chief Financial Officer at Cleartrip said, ‘’In terms of outbound hotel bookings, Hyderabad is among top five Indian cities bookings are emanating from, this Diwali. Most of these bookings are starting from Friday onwards, which indicates that people may be looking at celebrating Diwali at their home and starting their extended weekend vacation from Friday’’.
