A two-month ban on catching hilsa and all other fish is in force on the Meghna and Tentulia rivers in Bhola. But ten days into the ban, fishermen have still not received the rice allocated to them by the government. They are going through hardship, and some, unable to feed their families or pay NGO instalments without the rice, are slipping past the authorities to fish for hilsa.

On Monday (10 March), fishermen were seen fishing on the Meghna and Tentulia off Shibpur, Dhania, Ilisha, Bheduria and Bhedumia unions of Bhola Sadar upazila and Madanpur of Daulatkhan upazila, among others.

Md Jamal Majhi and Sumon Majhi, fishermen on the Meghna in the Bholar Khal area of Shibpur union, said: "Ten days of the two-month government ban have gone by. We still haven't got the government rice. There's no work and a lot of want at home. We're suffering a lot during Ramadan. If we got the government rice in our names it would help a great deal."

Mosharef Majhi, a Tentulia fisherman from the Hajirhat area of Velumia union, and Hanif Majhi, a Meghna fisherman from the Junction area of Ilisha union, said: "We don't go fishing during the drive. We don't know any work other than fishing, so there's no work at all. It's hard to run the household. My wife asks me to bring groceries, but I can't. I can't buy anything for the children either."

They added: "We borrowed money from the wholesaler to buy rice. We can eat for another five or six days. If we get the government rice in that time it will help a lot. If not, we'll have to borrow again to buy rice."

Several fishermen who were fishing in defiance of the ban said, without giving their names: "We didn't go on the river for the first few days of the drive. Now we have to buy rice, run the household and pay the NGO instalments. That's why we slip past the authorities and go fishing."

Bhola district fisheries officer Biswajit Kumar Deb said they were in contact with every upazila to distribute rice to fishermen quickly, and he hoped distribution would begin in every union of Bhola's seven upazilas within the next three or four days. Regular drives are also under way on the Meghna and Tentulia in the seven upazilas to enforce the ban, he said, and any fisherman who fishes in breach of it on some pretext will be detained and punished through a mobile court.

He said all fishing is banned from 1 March to 30 April over 190 km of the Meghna and Tentulia in Bhola because of the hilsa sanctuary. Although the district's seven upazilas have 170,283 registered fishermen, 89,600 of them will receive 40 kg of rice each this year.

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