A two-month ban on catching hilsa and all other fish in the Meghna and Tentulia rivers in Bhola began at midnight on Saturday. Because of the hilsa sanctuary, the ban will cover 190 km of the two rivers in Bhola from 1 March until midnight on 30 April. Transporting, marketing, buying and selling fish will also be banned during this time.

Fishermen have returned to shore from the rivers, and about 3 lakh fishermen in Bhola's seven upazilas have been left without work by the long ban. They are demanding that rice be distributed quickly during the ban and that NGO loan instalment collection be suspended for the two months.

Md Akbar Majhi and Md Mohiuddin Majhi, Meghna fishermen from ward 4 of Shibpur union in Bhola Sadar upazila, said the government has banned fishing in the rivers for two months from 1 March, so they brought their trawlers back to shore early. They will return to fishing when the ban ends after two months.

Ruhul Amin Majhi, Shakil Majhi and Md Monir Majhi of the same area said the government runs drives on the rivers every year from 1 March to 30 April, but fishermen's NGO loan instalments do not stop, so many fishermen secretly go fishing under the pressure of repayments. If the government wants this year's two-month drive to be fully successful, they said, NGO instalment collection must be suspended for the period; then fishermen will not go to the river and no one will fish, and only then will the drive succeed.

Md Zakir Hossain Majhi and Md Noman Majhi, fishermen from the Bholar Khal area in ward 3 of the same union, said the government gives rice for jatka (young hilsa) conservation, but every year it is distributed towards the end of the drive. With Ramadan under way and Eid ahead this year, they demanded that the rice be distributed early, along with other daily essentials.

Bhola district fisheries officer Md Iqbal Hossain said no separate rice is given for the hilsa sanctuary, but for jatka conservation each fisherman receives a total of 40 kg of rice over four months. This year too, about 90,000 of Bhola's 1.68 lakh registered fishermen will receive rice, and efforts will be made to distribute it in the first week of March.

For the first time this year, under the "Hilsa Resource Development and Management" project, flour, lentils, oil, potatoes, sugar and salt will be distributed among 13,600 fishermen in Bhola's seven upazilas. He also said steps will be taken to suspend loan instalment collection from fishermen during the ban, and arrangements will be made to distribute the jatka conservation rice quickly.

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