Hilsa Scarce at Barishal's Port Road Market as Short Supply Drives Up Prices

The hilsa season had begun, but in June 2026 very little hilsa was reaching the Port Road wholesale fish landing centre in Barishal city. Jagonews24 reported the shortage on 17 June. Earlier, on the morning of Tuesday, 2 June, RTV visited the centre and found that about 60 maunds of hilsa had arrived, when around 1,000 maunds would be expected at that time of year. In Bangladesh a maund is 40 kg. With supply short, hilsa prices had risen.

Barishal lies on the banks of the Kirtankhola River and is the headquarters of both Barishal district and Barishal division; its river port is the second largest in Bangladesh. The Port Road wholesale houses are a major hilsa trading hub for the south of the country.

According to RTV's report of 2 June, hilsa of about 1 kg sold at the centre for Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000 a kg. Fish of 700 to 900 g (the LC grade) fetched Tk 2,050 to Tk 2,400 a kg, 500 g fish Tk 1,800, and 400 g fish Tk 1,500 to Tk 1,600 a kg. Sellers said there were no hilsa in the rivers even in the season, so supply was low and prices high.

Md Robin, manager of Messrs Dulal Fish, said that only a year or two earlier about 2,000 maunds of hilsa changed hands at Port Road by the end of a peak-season day. For several days, he said, no more than 60 maunds had been arriving, so prices were rising even though demand was there.

Shahin, who had come to Port Road to buy fish, told RTV that hilsa which used to cost Tk 1,400 to Tk 1,600 a kg now cost Tk 2,200 to Tk 2,500, and accused traders of using the short supply as an excuse to push prices up through a syndicate. Another buyer, Sohel Rana, said he had come to the wholesale market hoping to pay less but found retail prices; he paid Tk 3,000 for four hilsa of 700 to 800 g.

Aslam, a fisherman working the river, said there were neither hilsa nor jatka (juvenile hilsa). He was getting by on loans for now, but expected fish once it rained. Sagir, who fishes the Kirtankhola, said he had gone out respecting the ban rules and still found no hilsa; if it went on, he would have to sell his net to pay his debts.

Barishal fisheries officer Dr Hadiuzzaman told RTV that the hilsa season starts in June but the peak begins in July. He expected hilsa to move from the sea into the rivers once the rains came, because close watch over the sixth sanctuary in March and April that year had reduced the killing of jatka. Catching full-grown hilsa, he said, was not restricted.

Mohammad Nasir Uddin, deputy project director of the Hilsa Resource Development and Management Project, told RTV that shoals of small jatka had left for the sea by the end of April that year, against the first week of May the year before. With Department of Fisheries patrols keeping catches of jatka down, his team estimated that about 90 percent had reached the sea.

The hilsa is Bangladesh's national fish. It swims up rivers from the sea to spawn, mainly during the southwest monsoon, and in 2017 it was recognised as a Geographical Indication of Bangladesh. UNB reported on 6 April 2026 that, according to Fisheries and Livestock Minister Amin Ur Rashid, hilsa production reached 500,000 metric tons in the 2024-25 fiscal year, about 9.79 percent of the country's fish output. The country has six hilsa sanctuaries, and catching, transporting and selling jatka is banned from 1 November to 30 June.

BSS reported that a 58-day ban on all fishing in the Bay of Bengal, meant to protect marine biodiversity and keep fish production sustainable, ran from midnight on 14 April to midnight on 11 June. The sea ban was still in force when RTV visited Port Road, and had ended a few days before the Jagonews24 report.

Photo: DelwarHossain / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, RTV, UNB, BSS, Wikipedia