The ban on catching hilsa lifts after midnight tonight, and fishermen will go back on the river after a long time. They have already finished their preparations, hoping to find the hilsa they want once the ban is over.

On Sunday (3 November) fishermen were busy from the morning repairing trawlers, boats, nets and all other fishing gear. Some were hauling their trawlers and boats from the bank into the river in groups, while others were running trawler engines on the riverbank to test them.

Jahangir Majhi, Abdur Rahman and Abdul Hakim Majhi, Meghna fishermen from Tulatuli village in ward 2 of Dhania union in Bhola Sadar upazila, said: "The ban ends at 12 tonight. After 12:01 we will go on the river. Trawlers, boats, nets and all other gear are ready for catching hilsa."

Yunus Majhi and Azgar Majhi of the same area said: "During the ban we got 25 kg of rice from the government. But we had to buy other food for the household. Our income had stopped, so we ran our families on loans. Now we dream of catching hilsa on the river after the ban and paying off all our debts."

District fisheries officer Biswajit Kumar Deb hopes fishermen will get the hilsa they want after the ban. He said fishermen going out on the Meghna and Tetulia in Bhola would be able to catch the desired amount of hilsa, pay off their past debts and get back on their feet. He also claimed the 22-day ban had been fairly successful.

More than 400 fishermen were detained across Bhola's seven upazilas for catching hilsa in defiance of the ban. At least 350 of them were jailed or fined by mobile courts.

Because it is the main hilsa breeding season, the government banned hilsa fishing in the Meghna and Tetulia in Bhola from 13 October to 3 November. Transporting, marketing, buying and selling hilsa were also banned during the same period.

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