Vipassana in government and police: leave and training in India

Several Indian state governments give their employees special paid leave to attend a 10-day Vipassana course, usually 10 to 15 days of special leave, a limited number of times in a career. Maharashtra has done so since 1996 and Chhattisgarh since April 2026. Police academies held their first courses in 1976 in Rajasthan and in 1999 in Delhi. We found no leave order covering all central government employees, and no such rule in Nepal.

All of these schemes concern courses in S. N. Goenka's tradition. The Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) keeps a list of government circulars with a copy of each order; the note at the end says which ones we could read.

Which states give leave for a Vipassana course

Government	Year	Who it covers	What it grants
Maharashtra	1996	Officers of Deputy Secretary rank and above, aged 45 or over (Finance Department resolution of 15 May 1996); staff of four state corporations (circular of 7 August 1996)	Up to 14 days' leave and actual travel costs, once in three years, at most six times in a career
Andhra Pradesh	2000	Officers of Deputy Secretary rank and above, aged 45 or over	Up to 10 days' special casual leave, once in three years, at most six times
Goa	2006, revised 2022	Group A and B officers, section officers and superintendents; from 2022 also Group C employees	14 days' special leave, once in three years, at most six times
Maharashtra (schools)	2011	Teachers, officers and staff	14 days' leave treated as duty, once in their service
Bihar	2021, extended 2024	State government employees (in 2021, those travelling to Patna from offices elsewhere)	Up to 15 days' special leave, first for the centre in Buddha Smriti Park, Patna, then also Bodh Gaya, Nalanda, Muzaffarpur, Chakiya and Vaishali
Assam	2023	School teachers	Up to 12 days' special leave including travel, for the course at Chandrapur, Guwahati
Chhattisgarh	2026	All India Service officers and state employees	Up to 12 days' special casual leave per course, including travel, on full pay and treated as duty, at most six times in a career, for recognised centres in the state

In Gujarat, the state's Council of Educational Research and Training decided in May 2002 that teachers attending a course could be treated as on duty if their principal agreed, they went by choice, and they kept a record of changes in their pupils' behaviour. VRI also lists orders from Madhya Pradesh (1999), Uttar Pradesh (2004) and several Maharashtra public bodies. How schools use Anapana under the 2011 Maharashtra order is covered in Vipassana for students.

How the leave rules work

The orders we read follow a common pattern:

• the employee first gets a place on a course and attaches the centre's admission letter to the leave application;
• after the course, they hand in the centre's completion certificate; in Chhattisgarh, without it the days are set against their earned leave;
• the leave is not a right: Goa's notification says it "cannot be claimed as a matter of right" and may be refused when work demands;
• courses are free, but travel is treated differently: Maharashtra's 1996 circular paid actual travel costs, Chhattisgarh's order pays none.

Is there a central government order?

VRI's page says "The Government of India, multiple State Governments, and many PSUs" have issued such circulars. The only central government item on its list, though, is a 1989 Ministry of Human Resource Development letter on student visas for Pali courses at VRI. We found no Department of Personnel and Training order giving central government employees leave for Vipassana. Public-sector companies are separate: the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's scheme for sending executives on courses is described in Vipassana for professionals.

Vipassana in civil service training

Some states made the course part of official training:

• Maharashtra. In February 2004 the director general of YASHADA, the state's administrative training academy in Pune, wrote that its board had approved "10 days Vipassana Courses as a compulsory part of Induction/Foundation Courses of senior officers like IAS, Dy. Collectors, Tahsildars", adding 10 days to their training.
• Madhya Pradesh. VRI says officers joining Vipassana courses held through the State Academy of Administration were treated as on duty.
• Rajasthan. VRI says the government decided to hold regular courses for trainees at its State Institute of Public Administration and the Rajasthan Police Academy.

Not everyone went willingly. R. S. Gupta, a Deputy Commissioner in Indore, wrote in an account on VRI's site: "Initially for the first 3 days I was a bit upset and tense but as the course progressed, I found some inner strength. Now after doing the course I feel grateful for being sent here against my wishes."

Police courses and training academies

In India, Vipassana reached the police through the prisons. After the first prison course at Jaipur Central Jail in 1975, VRI says, a course was held at the Rajasthan Police Academy in early 1976, "in which police officers of all ranks participated".

• Rajasthan, 1996. A Home Department letter of 15 October 1996 records decisions to send Rajasthan Police Service probationers at the academy in Jaipur on a 10-day course, to introduce a new batch of more than 200 sub-inspectors to Vipassana, and to send jail staff, all on a voluntary basis. V. K. Hansuka, later an Additional Director General of Police, wrote that as the academy's director he sent 22 deputy superintendents and 315 sub-inspectors to courses at Dhamma Thali in Jaipur, and that "The feedback from the trainees who underwent the Vipassana course is greatly satisfying".
• Delhi, 1999. VRI reported a 10-day course for about 35 people at the Delhi Police Training College from 1 to 12 January 1999. One of them was Kiran Bedi, who had brought Vipassana to Tihar Jail; VRI says it was her first course. VRI's history page says a course for 1,200 police cadets followed in March 1999.
• Delhi prisons, 2001. A circular from the prisons headquarters, dated 9 March 2001 in VRI's list, gave staff who attended a course travel allowance, a commendation from the Director General of Prisons and a reward of Rs 500, and treated the time as duty.
• Gujarat, 2010. VRI lists a letter from the Inspector General of Police allowing police staff to attend courses; it is in Gujarati and we could not read it.

D. R. Karthikeyan, then Special Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, wrote in an account on VRI's site: "Even in the very short time that I have been exposed to Vipassana I am able to increasingly accept people as they are instead of trying to change them all the time". The prison side of this history is told in Vipassana in prisons and the Tihar Jail story.

What officials reported, and how far to trust it

In 2001 and 2002, VRI surveyed government officials and public-sector staff who had done a course; 653 of 1,103 replied and 607 replies were usable. VRI reports that 98% said they had benefited and about 95% said Vipassana "has a direct role to play in improving public administration". The organisation that teaches the course designed and ran the survey, and those who answer such surveys tend to be the positive ones, so it shows how participants felt, not what changed in their offices. We found no independent study of any of these leave schemes.

Nepal: no equivalent rule found

We searched in English and Nepali for a Government of Nepal rule, circular or cabinet decision giving civil servants leave for a Vipassana course, and found none. The leave types described under Nepal's Civil Service Act 2049 and Civil Service Rules 2050 do not mention it. We also found no official source for Vipassana courses for the Nepal Police or the Nepal Army. Two related facts are on record. Dhamma Āsaya, the centre inside Nakkhu prison established in February 2024, holds courses for prisoners and government officials. And Dhamma Shringa near Kathmandu lists two executive courses on its 2027 schedule, courses its listing describes as "especially for business executives and government officials". The Nepal Vipassana Center's city office in Kathmandu is the place to ask whether any leave arrangement exists.