Seventeen days into the ban on fishing during the main hilsa breeding season, about 16,575 fishers in six unions of Lalmohan upazila, Bhola, have not received the fisheries VGF rice allotted to them. The rice, 25 kg a person, was due to be distributed by 7 October.
From 8 to 29 October all fishing is banned in the fish sanctuary areas of the Meghna and Tentulia rivers. Catching, selling, storing, transporting and marketing hilsa are all punishable during the period. The government gives out-of-work fishers 25 kg of rice each for it.
Fishers complain that many genuine fishers do not get rice even when listed. More than 24,000 fishers are registered in Lalmohan, but rice has been allotted for about 21,000. Allegations of irregular distribution are a recurring complaint.
Kamrul Majhi, Maksud Majhi, Abbas Majhi and Rubel Majhi, fishers on the Meghna bank, said the ban cuts off their main income and the government rice is their only support. Without it on time, their debts are growing, families cannot pay for children's schooling, and NGO loan instalments are being paid with borrowed money.
Union parishad chairmen said a lack of coordination in preparing and verifying the lists had delayed distribution and that it would be finished soon. Upazila fisheries officer Ali Ahmed Akhand said union parishad officials had been urged repeatedly to distribute the rice, and that it would be done within a day or two.
Five days of the ban remain. Keeping fishers off the river is what makes the effort to protect breeding hilsa work, and getting their rice to them on time is the condition for that.
The report was filed by Dainik Bangla's Lalmohan (Bhola) correspondent.
Photo: Fishers' boats on the Meghna bank in Bhola, Toushik.hamid / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Dainik Bangla
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