No public holiday on International Yoga Day; yoga voluntary for govt employees

There will be no public holiday and yoga will be voluntary for central government employees on Tuesday, when the country observes second International Yoga Day.

"There will be no holiday and all government offices will remain open tomorrow," a senior official in Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

He said the Centre has not made it mandatory for the employees to take part in yoga.

"It is voluntary. Necessary arrangements have been put in place to allow employees to attend yoga at various programmes being organised across the country," the official said.

There are about 50 lakh central government employees.

Over one lakh events have been planned in the country on second International Yoga Day. Of these, 10 regional-level mega events will be hosted in Varanasi, Imphal, Jammu, Shimla, Vadodara, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Vijayawada, Bhubaneshwar and Hoshiarpur.

The main programme will be held in Chandigarh which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Yoga day programmes will also be organised in 391 universities, 16,000 colleges and 12,000 schools across the country.