DHAKA: Clerk Mohammed Shajahan spent a weekend out of town visiting family after the government cut his work-week last week to five days from six to save energy, only to find himself poorer as bus fares had spiked. “I was happy when the government announced the decision, but when I saw that the bus owners have already hiked their transport fares by 20 to 30 per cent, I was shocked,” said Mohammad Shahjahan, a clerk at the government’s audit office.

The government adopted a five-day working week, from Sunday to Thursday, to control soaring energy costs that prompted steep rises in gasoline and diesel prices and has strained the economy in Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries.

Government employees like Mr Shajahan were expected to embrace the extra day to return to their villages and do some light farming.

“Many have land in the villages where they can farm vegetables during the two-day holidays,” Finance Minister M. Saifur Rahman told reporters in announcing the shorter work week.

But Mr Shahjahan said most of the bus owners increased fares last week after the government announced the fuel price hike making the new found free time too expensive.

“The both-way tickets cost me around 600 taka to visit my wife and kids in Jessore, 220 kilometres from Dhaka, which is too much for people like me who earn only 5,000 taka a month,” he said.

“I enjoyed the first extended holiday, but I’m not sure whether I will go back to my kids again next week,” he added.

The two-day holiday was meant for the country’s one million government civil servants. —By arrangement with Asianage