204 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
able to bear the cost and should bear. The Bill also provides for limited condition with regard to holidays with pay and that limited condition relates to the question of accumulation of holidays. The Bill provides that a worker who has been qualified to earn his holidays may be entitled to accumulate holidays for two years and that is for a total period of 14 days.
Pay during Holidays
Coming to the question of pay during holidays, there are several points to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. The first is that although the total period of the holiday is seven, only six are declared to be paid holidays. The seventh, as I said, is really a day of weekly rest provided under section 35. With regard to the seventh day, the Bill does not make it obligatory upon the employer to pay for it. But at the same time the bill does not take away the right of the employee to demand payment, if as a result of his contract of service that holiday was due to him as a paid holiday. It is really left to be governed by the contract of service.
The third point is with regard to the payment to be made for these six holidays. The rule that we have adopted in the Bill is a rough, and I believe, an equitable rule and it is this : that a worker is to be paid at a rate equivalent to the average of his earnings during the three preceding months barring overtime. I believe that is an equitable principle. The Bill also provides that in order to enable a workman to take his holiday, some facilities should be given him in order to have some cash with him on the day on which he proposes to start on his holiday. Consequently provision is made in the Bill that half the dues which are to be paid to the workman going on holiday shall be paid to him at the start.
Another matter which is relevant to this, and is also importants, is this. The Bill proposes to exempt certain factories from its operation if it is found that a factory has a system of holidays with pay which is substantially similar to the one provided in the Bill and about whose satisfactory character the Provincial Government is able to certify. The object underlying this clause is that if there is a voluntary arrangement between the employer and the worker whereby the worker is given the same privileges which we are providing in the law, the view taken by