"At this time of year the Port Road fish landing centre used to be flooded with hilsa, and every wholesale house was busy with buyers and sellers. But for more than a month, all the houses in Barishal together have not received even 20 to 25 maunds of hilsa. With supply below expectations, prices have risen a lot."

So said Yar Hossain Sikder, former finance secretary of the Port Road fish landing centre owners' association, speaking to Jago News at the wholesale centre in Barishal city on the morning of Monday, 15 June.

"In the peak season our 170 wholesale houses used to receive 500 to 1,000 maunds of hilsa a day. Now 20 to 25 maunds arrive. Sales used to run into crores of taka; now they are only Tk 15-25 lakh," he said.

At the centre, the familiar calls of traders were missing. Many workers sat idle, and some passed the time playing ludo. They said that with no work they were living on borrowed money, but expected to repay their debts once the full hilsa season began in a few days.

Hilsa worker Shah Alam told Jago News he used to earn Tk 800 to Tk 1,200 loading and unloading fish. Now he barely makes Tk 300 to Tk 500, and not every day. He expects the hardship to end soon.

Another worker, Shahid, said he spends his days playing ludo. Many have left for work elsewhere, but he hopes the market will soon be full of hilsa, bringing work day and night, higher income and the chance to repay debts.

The hilsa season began on 1 June, but hilsa are not being caught in the rivers, and what is in the market is very expensive. Traders say low supply has pushed up prices, and some people have almost forgotten the taste of hilsa. Prices will fall when supply rises, they say.

At the Port Road centre, hilsa of about 1 kg sold at Tk 2,650 to Tk 3,000 a kg; 700-900 g fish (LC) at Tk 2,050 to Tk 2,400 a kg; 500 g fish at Tk 1,800; and 400 g fish at Tk 1,500 to Tk 1,600 a kg.

Nasir Uddin, owner of Lia Arat at the Port Road hilsa market, said there are hardly any hilsa in the local rivers. For the past few days only 15 to 20 maunds have arrived, against 500 maunds normally at this time, so prices are somewhat higher.

Md Robin, manager of Messrs Dulal Fish, said that even a year or two ago about 2,000 maunds of hilsa were traded at Port Road by the end of a day in peak season. Now the picture is reversed: for several days no more than 20-25 maunds have arrived, so prices have risen despite demand.

Aslam, a fisherman on the Kirtankhola river, said there are neither hilsa nor jatka (juvenile hilsa) in the river and he is living on loans for now, though fish will be caught once it rains. Another Kirtankhola fisherman, Sagir, said he went out on the river respecting the ban, yet has not seen any hilsa. If this goes on, he will have to sell his net to repay his debts.

Barishal fisheries officer Dr Hadiuzzaman told Jago News that although the hilsa season starts in June, the peak begins in July. He expects hilsa to come up from the sea into the rivers once it rains, because this year close monitoring of the sixth sanctuary in March and April reduced the killing of jatka. The ban to protect jatka ran until 30 June in the rivers and until 11 June at sea, he said, but there is now no bar on catching hilsa.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.