After a lean spell, large catches of hilsa have been landing on the Cox's Bazar coast since early October. Prices have not followed: large and medium fish are beyond most buyers, and even small hilsa cost over Tk 800 a kilo. About 127,000 fishermen work on some 6,000 trawlers in the district, and they are worried about how to get by during the 22-day ban to protect breeding hilsa. Prothom Alo's Cox's Bazar correspondent Abdul Kuddus reported the story.
On Tuesday morning at least 45 trawlers berthed at the government fish landing centre at Nuniachhara Fishery Ghat, some with 300 hilsa and some with more than 2,500. The trawler FB Sohel brought in 2,400. Its master, Abdul Munaf, asked Tk 50 lakh; after haggling, three traders bought the lot for Tk 44 lakh, about Tk 2,000 a kilo. One of them, Sirajul Islam, said the fish would sell for Tk 2,100 to Tk 2,200 a kilo in Dhaka.
Munaf said nets cast 50 to 60 km off the coast in the western Bay of Bengal are coming up full, as hilsa are moving in shoals. Fishermen on another trawler from Khurushkul sold 1,100 hilsa for Tk 17.6 lakh.
At wholesale, hilsa over 1 kg fetch Tk 2,200 to Tk 2,500 a kilo; 800-900 g fish Tk 1,600 to Tk 1,800; 500-700 g fish Tk 1,200 to Tk 1,300; and 350-400 g fish Tk 750 to Tk 800. Most weigh 800 to 900 g, and fishermen say most medium hilsa are carrying roe. Zainal Abedin, president of the Cox's Bazar marine fish traders' association, said 90 per cent of the hilsa landed on the coast goes to Dhaka.
Fishermen and trawler owners are frustrated too. Bad weather kept them ashore for two months; hilsa appeared for 10 to 12 days in mid-September and again from 2 October, but the ban leaves only two more days of fishing. Md Delwar Hossain, general secretary of the Cox's Bazar fishing boat owners' association, said a five-to-seven-day trip costs Tk 5 to 7 lakh but the catch fetches Tk 2 to 3 lakh, and many owners are selling their boats after repeated losses. He urged vigilance so that foreign vessels do not take hilsa during the ban.
Photo: Gouriband / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Prothom Alo
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