Hilsa floods Barishal market after ban

A lot of hilsa arrived at a Barishal wholesale market yesterday just a day after a 22-day ban period had ended.

The government bans catching, selling and transporting hilsa between October 7 and 28 to ensure the safe spawning of the popular fish during its peak breeding period.

Bimol Chandra Das, district fishery officer (DFO), said more than 5,000 maunds of hilsa came to Barishal in a day.

“I think fishermen might have netted those during the ban period,” he said.

During a visit to Port Road wholesale market, The Daily Star found that frozen hilsa flooded market, which is the largest one in the district.

According to locals, they preserved those in cold storages.

However, many of those were about to be rotten as many fishermen and wholesalers could not preserve them in cold storages and could not transport those during the ban period, they said.

Already 50 hilsa-laden trawlers anchored at the wholesale market. Labourers and traders were busy with unloading the fish.

Nirob Hossain Tutul, secretary of Matsya Aratdar Samity of wholesale market, said hilsa weighing 400gm to 500gm are being sold at Tk 16,000 per maund, 600gm to 900gm at Tk 18,000 and over 1kg at Tk 28,000. The price is more than half than it was before the ban period, he added.

CONVICTION DURING THE BAN

A total of 961 fishermen were jailed for different terms in six districts of Barishal division in the 22 days (from October 7 to 28) for violating the ban, according to the fisheries department.

The department in association with the upazila administration, police, coastguards and Rab conducted 1,900 drives and 986 mobile courts in the rivers Kalabadar, Kirtankhola, Arial Khan, Meghna, Ilisha, Bishkhali, Tetulia, Sandhya and Sugandha.

They filed around 935 cases.

They department seized around 9.99 tonnes of hilsa, fined fishermen over Tk 20 lakh and destroyed 29.7 lakh metres of fishing nets.

DFO Bimol said he thinks more than 50 percent of mother hilsa was able to spawn successfully this year because of the restriction.

As the ban period is over, fishermen were preparing to start netting fishes early yesterday.