'Will we ever find time for family, mental health?': Shark Tank India's Namita Thapar questions 70-hours-a-week work pitch

Executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and Shark Tank India judge Namita Thapar on Tuesday joined the debate on working 70 hours per week. She took to X (formerly Twitter) to question those supporting such long work week and raised her concerns about its impact on family time and mental health.

Sharing a video of Halloween celebrations with her family, Thapar wrote, "Anupam Mittal, if we listen to you and other experts about working 70 hours/week (plus horrendous commute time) will we ever find time for family, creating precious memories, and most importantly for mental health?"

Her comments come at a time when there is an intense debate around the positives and negatives of working for long hours. The debate was triggered after Infosys founder Narayana Murthy's suggestion for longer working hours to improve the country's work productivity.

"India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world," Murthy said while speaking to former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai for a podcast, The Record. He said unless the country improves its work productivity, it will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress.

"Therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I’d like to work 70 hours a week'," Murthy said, adding that this is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War. "They made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years."

Murthy's comment was met with backlash over social media, however, many people like Pai, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, industrialist Sajjan Jindal, and others supported him.

Meanwhile, a few days back, Anupam Mittal, founder of Shadi.com, shared a selfie with his fellow judges of Shark Tank India. Sharing the picture on X, he wrote, "After all these years, still working 70-hour weeks".

The selfie features Mittal alongside boAt CEO and co-founder Aman Gupta, CEO and co-founder of CarDekho Amit Jain, Namita Thapar, and CEO and co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics Vineeta Singh.

"Reflecting on the recent sentiments expressed by Mr Narayana Murthy regarding the youth working 70 hours a week, I feel compelled to share my perspective. Undeniably, hard work is the backbone of success, but it is not about the hours clocked in. It's about the quality and passion one brings to those hours," Marico's founder and chairman Harsh Mariwala said on X.

Also Read: 'No big achievement can come with work-life balance': CRED's Kunal Shah flags risk of Western concepts for India

Also Read: Narayana Murthy 'worked 80-90 hours a week': Sudha Murty on ongoing '70 hours-a-week' debate

Also Read: 'Not about hours clocked in': Marico's Harsh Mariwala weighs in on Narayana Murthy's 'work 70 hours a week' remark