Chandpur caught 34,326 tonnes of hilsa in a year, District Fisheries Officer Md Golam Mehedi Hasan said on Tuesday morning (30 July).

In the 2022-2023 fiscal year the district's fish demand was 68,466 tonnes and the catch was 116,090 tonnes, he said. This year, he said, 47,624 tonnes of hilsa more than demand were caught.

Everyone keeps an eye on Chandpur's hilsa, he said. Allegations of fraud in online hilsa sales have recently emerged, with many opening Facebook pages to take advantage. We must all be careful to protect the district's reputation, he said.

The fisheries officer said that not only hilsa but every kind of fish is produced in the district's rivers, and farmers also produce many kinds of fish. But the people of this district prefer river fish, and river fish production is being hampered for various reasons.

The district has 47,249 registered fishers, he said. In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, heifer calves and legal nets are being distributed among fishers through the Hilsa Resource Development and Management Project to create alternative livelihoods. In 2023-2024, in the Meghna coastal upazilas of Matlab Uttar, Matlab Dakshin, Sadar and Haimchar, 500 fishers were given heifer calves, 276 fishers in groups were given 92 legal thread nets and 350 beneficiary fishers received three days of training.

Present were Chandpur Press Club president Shahadat Hossain Shanto, Md Mozammel Haque, senior scientific officer at the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) river centre in Chandpur, Nur Hossain, assistant director of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection's Chandpur office, journalists Alam Palash, Faruk Ahmed and Muhammad Masud Alam, Tasalim Bepari, organising secretary of the Jatiya Matshyajibi Samity, district Matshyajibi League president Malek Dewan and general secretary Md Manik Dewan, fish farmer Md Billal Hossain, Sadar Upazila Senior Fisheries Officer Md Tanjimul Islam, Assistant Fisheries Officer Md Mizanur Rahman and Assistant Fisheries Officer (Hilsa Project) SM Mushfiqur Rahman, among others.

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