Minister urges hilsa research to raise output and bring the fish within reach

Scientists in Bangladesh must take a more active part in research on protecting jatka, the young of the hilsa, and on raising hilsa production, Mohammad Amin Ur Rashid, Minister for Fisheries and Livestock and Agriculture, said in Dhaka on Wednesday, 8 April 2026. Speaking as chief guest at a workshop titled "Hilsa Research: Achievements, Jatka Conservation and Future Tasks" at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) auditorium, he said planned work was needed on how to take jatka production to its highest level and how to increase the number of jatka through the proper hatching of hilsa eggs. Production had to be raised, he said, to bring this valuable fish within reach of ordinary people.

The workshop was held for Jatka Conservation Week 2026, which ran from 7 to 13 April under the theme "If we stop catching jatka, the sea and rivers will fill with hilsa". It was chaired by Dr Anuradha Bhadra, director general of the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), and the keynote paper was presented by Dr Mohammad Ashraful Alam, a chief scientific officer of the institute, according to Jagonews24 and the state news agency BSS.

The minister set the researchers a specific task. Scientists, he said, must find ways to raise production further while keeping the taste and quality of hilsa intact. A method had to be developed that would increase production and meet the country's demand without spoiling the fish's natural taste and character.

He also turned to the fishers in the hall. "The nets and the rivers are yours," he told them, according to the reports, so they themselves could give the government effective proposals on what steps might be taken to stop jatka fishing. Not getting hilsa, he said, had become a problem for the whole country, and that was why production had to be raised to bring the fish within ordinary people's reach.

The theme ran through the ministry's statements that week. At a press conference at the Secretariat on 6 April, the minister had said that the government was working to develop the hilsa resource so that hilsa reached the hands of people across the country, the daily Desh Rupantor reported. Answering a question at that briefing, he said that hilsa production had fallen because of chars, or silt islands, forming in the rivers, that those places had to be cleared for production to rise, and that river and canal dredging programmes were in place so that hilsa could move freely.

The day before the workshop, on 7 April, the minister had opened the week at Molhead in Chandpur Sadar, where the Padma and the Meghna meet. There, BSS reported, he said that jatka killing must be stopped completely by strictly following the existing laws, urged everyone from fishers to consumers to come forward to protect jatka for the sake of future generations, and said that catching one egg-bearing hilsa means destroying thousands of future fish. He told fishers that if they stayed off the water for at least two months, small hilsa would grow larger and heavier, which would be more profitable for them later.

Speaking as special guest, State Minister for Fisheries and Livestock Sultan Salahuddin Tuku MP said that hilsa is a geographical indication product of Bangladesh and that about 70 to 80 percent of the world's hilsa is produced in the country. He called on everyone to be aware of the need to protect this important resource, and said that if jatka catching could be stopped completely, hilsa production would rise significantly, making a large contribution to the economy.

He said that food assistance for 40,000 fisher families had begun over the previous two months. Under it, each family was receiving 80 kg of rice, 12 kg of flour, 10 litres of oil, 4 kg of sugar, 8 kg of lentils and 16 kg of potatoes, worth about Tk 6,000 in all. Fishers had never received this much assistance in the past, he said. He added that local members of parliament would also keep helping fishers, and urged everyone to make sure that fishers stayed off the water during the hilsa ban and obeyed the law.

This package came on top of the long-running food aid for fishers during the jatka season. At the 6 April briefing, the minister said that around 3,67,000 fisher families receive 40 kg of rice a month for four months, a total of 58,720 tonnes a year, and that 6,19,312 families received 25 kg of food assistance during the breeding season, according to the news agency UNB. Under the Hilsa Resource Development and Management Project, he said, fishers were also being given training, equipment and even calves to help them earn an alternative income.

Md Delowar Hossain, secretary of the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, spoke as guest of honour. The other speakers were Md Zia Haider Chowdhury, director general of the Department of Fisheries; Professor Dr Kazi Ahsan Habib, dean of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University; and Dr Md Motaleb Hossain, a director of the Department of Fisheries. Senior officials of the ministry, BFRI and the Department of Fisheries attended, along with fishers and fish farmers.

The workshop met at a time of falling catches and rising prices. Department of Fisheries figures published by Desh Rupantor on 7 April 2026 show that hilsa production rose from 4.96 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 to a peak in 2022-23 and then fell:

• 2017-18: 5.17 lakh tonnes
• 2018-19: 5.32 lakh tonnes
• 2019-20: 5.50 lakh tonnes
• 2020-21: 5.65 lakh tonnes
• 2021-22: 5.66 lakh tonnes
• 2022-23: 5.71 lakh tonnes
• 2023-24: 5.29 lakh tonnes
• 2024-25: 5 lakh tonnes, the lowest in eight years

At the 6 April press conference the minister named river siltation, climate change, river pollution and growing pressure on fish stocks as the reasons why keeping hilsa production steady had become a great challenge. He said hilsa accounts for about 9.79 percent of the country's total fish production and around 1 percent of gross domestic product, that more than 80 percent of the world's hilsa comes from the rivers, estuaries and coastal waters of Bangladesh, and that Bangladesh ranks first among the 11 hilsa-producing countries, The Daily Star reported. About 6 lakh people fish for hilsa directly, and another 20 to 25 lakh are engaged directly or indirectly in transport, marketing, net and boat making, ice production, processing and export.

For buyers, the effect was plain in the markets. On 3 April 2026, five days before the workshop, UNB found in Dhaka kitchen markets in Shantinagar, Motijheel, Malibagh, Rampura, Badda and Kuril that hilsa below 500 grams, which had sold for Tk 800 to 1,000 a kg, was priced at Tk 1,400 to 1,500. Fish of 700 to 800 grams sold for Tk 2,200 to 2,300 a kg, and fish of a kilogram or more for Tk 2,600 to 2,800 a kg. Traders blamed a fall in supply in recent days and higher demand ahead of Pahela Baishakh, the Bangla New Year, and said supply might improve towards the end of April.

The workshop's title spoke of achievements, and BFRI's own published guidance shows what its hilsa research had produced before 2026. In a technology booklet on hilsa resource development and management, posted on the institute's website, BFRI says that its Riverine Station in Chandpur has carried out continuous research on hilsa since it was set up. Through that research it identified the areas where jatka roam and where hilsa breed, and worked out the period when jatka are most abundant and the peak breeding season of the adult fish. According to the booklet, hilsa production rose steadily from 2003 as the Department of Fisheries put the institute's recommendations into practice.

The booklet sets out the results in figures from the Department of Fisheries' Fisheries Resources Survey System, which has recorded hilsa production since 1983-84. The catch was 2,20,593 tonnes in 2001-02 and fell to 1,99,032 tonnes in 2002-03. After jatka conservation began it reached 2,55,839 tonnes in 2003-04; with sanctuaries added it was 2,77,123 tonnes in 2005-06; and with the protection of brood hilsa as well it reached 3,12,612 tonnes in 2009-10, 41.71 percent above 2001-02.

Other findings in the same booklet bear directly on the minister's question about eggs and jatka:

• Hilsa usually mature at an age of one year or a little more, and sometimes at 8 to 10 months, depending on weather and other factors.
• A hilsa can carry up to 21 lakh eggs; larger fish carry more eggs than smaller ones.
• The main breeding season is September to October, with a second peak in January and February, although hilsa breed to some extent all year.
• In experimental fishing with current nets in the Meghna, the jatka catch per 100 metres of net per hour rose from 0.94 kg in 2005 to 2.44 kg in 2010, an increase of about 160 percent, after sanctuaries and a 10-day ban in the main breeding area were combined.
• The share of spent hilsa, fish that had already spawned, found in surveys rose from 0.50 percent in 2002 to 33.69 percent in 2010, which BFRI read as a sign of greater natural breeding success.
• Genetic research identified a single hilsa stock shared by Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, which is why the institute calls for inter-institutional and regional cooperation.

BFRI also estimated what a breeding ban could mean in eggs. For the 2010 season, it calculated that the 10-day ban saved about 1.51 crore hilsa from capture, and that those fish produced about 3,36,199 kg of eggs naturally. Assuming a hatching rate of 50 percent and a survival rate of 10 percent, the institute estimated that about 21,012 crore young hilsa would join the population that year.

Hilsa, Tenualosa ilisha, is a member of the herring family and the national fish of Bangladesh. Banglapedia describes it as anadromous: adults live at sea and swim up rivers to breed in fresh water. The eggs float freely, and after hatching the young grow in river channels before going down to the sea to feed and grow, returning to the rivers as mature adults. Migrating females release their eggs upstream in major rivers, including the Padma, Jamuna and Meghna. In about six to ten weeks the young grow to about 12 to 20 centimetres, become known as jatka, and begin to descend to the sea.

Banglapedia records that a large female may produce up to 2 million eggs, that the fish is mainly a plankton feeder, and that it can reach 60 centimetres in length, though fish of 35 to 40 centimetres are more common and a large hilsa weighs about 2.5 kg. FishBase gives the length at first maturity as 31.3 centimetres and notes that hilsa can travel upriver for as much as 1,200 kilometres, usually 50 to 100 kilometres, although barrages sometimes block the migration.

Because hilsa breed in open rivers, BFRI's booklet links the number of jatka directly to the protection of brood fish: if hilsa are protected in the main breeding season, the largest possible number of eggs is produced naturally and later appears as jatka. FishBase notes that artificial propagation of hilsa has been only partially successful in India. BFRI's booklet, for its part, lists the research then under way at its Chandpur station: the breeding and movement of jatka and hilsa, the maximum sustainable yield, population dynamics, river ecology, and the effect of environmental and climatic factors on the life cycle and productivity of hilsa, so that changes in nursery grounds, breeding grounds and migration routes can be detected.

The booklet is equally direct about what holds production back: unrestricted catching in the peak breeding season, which cuts natural egg and fry production; heavy catching of jatka, which causes growth overfishing because the young are taken before they can grow; deaths from fishing at almost every stage of the life cycle; and the loss of feeding and breeding grounds through reduced river flow, environmental change and pollution. It names rainfall, water flow and siltation as factors in hilsa production, reports a strong correlation (r = 0.98) between hilsa availability and siltation, and says that the flow of the Padma and the hilsa's habitat were badly harmed after 1978 when water flow fell because of the Farakka Barrage.

By the time of the workshop, the protection of jatka rested on a set of bans that the ministry listed at its 6 April briefing, according to UNB:

• a complete ban on catching, transporting and selling jatka from 1 November to 30 June;
• a 22-day ban on hilsa fishing during the peak breeding season;
• a 58-day ban on all fishing in the Bay of Bengal from 15 April to 11 June;
• six hilsa sanctuaries, with seasonal fishing bans in designated areas;
• a marine protected area of 3,188 square kilometres;
• VGF food assistance and alternative livelihood support for fishers.

For the 2025-26 season the eight-month jatka ban began on 1 November 2025 and was to run until 30 June 2026. It prohibits catching, transporting, marketing, buying, selling and storing hilsa smaller than 25 centimetres, The Financial Express reported. Under the Fish Protection and Conservation Ordinance as amended in 2025 and the Protection and Conservation of Fish Rules 1985, violators faced up to two years in prison, a fine of up to Tk 5 lakh, or both. The 22-day breeding ban of that season, the Hilsa Conservation Campaign 2025, had run from 4 to 25 October 2025.

The sanctuaries are stretches of river where all fishing stops in the months when jatka gather. When the sixth was declared in June 2018, Dhaka Tribune listed them as 100 km of the Meghna from Shatnol to Char Alexander; 90 km of the Shahbazpur Channel of the Meghna estuary in Bhola; 100 km of the Tentulia River in Bhola; 40 km of the Andharmanik River in Patuakhali; 20 km of the lower Padma in Shariatpur; and 83 km of the Meghna from Hizla to Mehendiganj in Barishal. The first ban of the year runs in March and April in all of them except the Andharmanik, where the closure runs from November to January. BFRI's booklet describes how the lower Padma sanctuary between Shariatpur and Chandpur was mapped with GPS points at the Department of Fisheries' request, to help field officers enforce the law.

Enforcement was also being stepped up that season. The minister said at the briefing that a 30-day "Special Combing Operation 2026" had been run in January and February in 96 upazilas of 18 districts, followed by a 15-day drive in 79 upazilas in March, and that drives against current nets and behundi nets, which he called major threats to hilsa production, would continue until June. BFRI's booklet gives the scale of the gear problem: of the jatka caught, about 50 percent are taken in jagat ber jal, 40 percent in current nets, and 10 percent in behundi and other nets.

The minister's appeal to fishers for their own proposals echoes what researchers had found about making bans work. WorldFish, an international research centre of the CGIAR, reported in April 2025 that through its ECOFISH project with the Department of Fisheries, fishers enforced conservation rules through locally formed hilsa conservation groups while receiving alternative livelihood support. It said hilsa catches rose by 10 to 11 percent a year, the average size of fish caught nearly doubled, and household incomes in project areas rose by 86.19 percent, against 52.66 percent in comparison areas. The same work, WorldFish said, contributed to extending the brood hilsa ban from 11 to 22 days and to the 3,188-square-kilometre Nijhum Dwip Marine Protected Area.

BFRI's booklet makes a similar point from the river: fishers who catch hilsa and jatka risk their lives for a living and are not economically secure, so arranging alternative work for them during sanctuary closures and the breeding ban would keep them off the water and raise production.

The institutions in the room each have a defined role. BARC, established in 1973 and located at Farmgate in Dhaka, is the apex body of the National Agricultural Research System; it coordinates research among the system's institutes, sets priorities and monitors research programmes, according to Banglapedia. BFRI, one of those institutes, was set up in 1984 and began work in 1986 as the national body for planning, coordinating and conducting fisheries research. Its headquarters are in Mymensingh, and its Riverine Station in Chandpur, with ponds, a hatchery and a research vessel for river surveys, is the centre of its hilsa work. The Department of Fisheries carries out the bans on the ground together with district and upazila administrations, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the river police and other agencies, under the ministry's supervision.

Jatka Conservation Week 2026 itself was organised by the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock in 20 hilsa-rich districts, with a three-day central programme and awareness activities at district and upazila level. At the 6 April briefing the minister asked the public to refrain from catching, buying, selling or storing jatka.

Photo: Nahid Sultan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Desh Rupantor, The Daily Star, UNB, The Business Standard, The Daily Ittefaq, The Financial Express, Dhaka Tribune, Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, WorldFish, Banglapedia, FishBase