Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Tuesday scrapped 15 public holidays that commemorate the birth and death anniversaries of social figures. However, government employees will be able to avail these holidays using their restricted holiday quota, PTI reported.

Of the 42 public holidays the state currently has, 17 are meant to honour “great personalities”. The government will soon issue a revised holiday list.

Some of those that have been cancelled are Jan Nayak Karpori Thakur’s birth anniversary (January 24), Maharshi Kashyap and Maharaj Guha’s birth anniversaries (April 5), Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti Ajmeri Gareeb Nawaz’s death anniversary (April 14) and Chandrashekhar’s birth anniversary (April 17).

Earlier, Adityanath had announced that schools will no longer be closed on the birth and death anniversaries of social leaders. “To ensure that children take inspiration from great leaders, special programmes should be held on the occasion [instead],” he had said at an event organised to mark the 126th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader had said that schools are expected to function for 220 days, but the target was not achieved because there are several holidays. “This leaves teachers with about 130 to 140 working days, which is not enough for students to learn,” he had said.