After a 22-day ban to protect brood hilsa, fishers will go out to catch hilsa and all other fish after midnight on Sunday. From 4 to 25 October the government banned catching, storing, buying, selling and transporting hilsa and all other fish on a 60-kilometre stretch of the Meghna river from Shatnol in Matlab to Char Bhairabi in Haimchar upazila.

During the sanctuary period, 44,035 registered fishers in the district were given 20 kg of rice each as food assistance. Over the 22 days, magistrates, the police administration, the Coast Guard and the fisheries department jailed or fined more than 200 fishers to protect brood hilsa. Many fishers, however, obeyed the programme and did not go fishing on the river.

After 22 idle days, the fishers will head out on the Padma and Meghna with high hopes of catching silver hilsa. They had been busy for several days getting their nets and boats ready.

Chandpur district fisheries officer Md Golam Mehedi Hasan said this year's programme was almost 100 per cent successful and the fishers were given rice on time. Because the programme succeeded, he said he was hopeful that hilsa production would keep rising next year.

Source: Bangladesh Pratidin. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.