Chhattisgarh now pays government employees full salary to attend silent meditation retreats — 12 days at a time, up to 6 times in their career. No phones, no talking, no work. So basically what they were already doing, but with spiritual branding.
The Chhattisgarh government has introduced a policy granting state employees up to 12 days of special paid leave to attend Vipassana meditation camps — 10-day silent retreats where participants surrender their phones, stop talking, and disconnect entirely from the outside world. Employees can claim this leave up to six times during their career, totaling 72 days of government-funded enlightenment. They receive full salary throughout and are "treated as on duty" while literally doing nothing. The stated goal is reducing workplace stress and improving efficiency, though one might argue that paying someone to professionally stare at a wall for nearly two and a half months across a career represents a fairly creative interpretation of "improving efficiency." Republic World headlined it perfectly: "What If Your Job Paid You to Do Nothing? One Indian State Is Trying It."