The government is considering fixing the price of hilsa in the districts where it is caught. Just as it makes this plan, an acute shortage of hilsa has developed in Dhaka's markets. Hilsa is available in only a handful of shops, and at very high prices. The national fish has gone beyond the reach of buyers.

At Rampura bazar at 11am on Saturday, 5 July, where at least four fish shops used to sell hilsa, only one had any. There, each 1kg hilsa was priced at Tk 2,800, and the seller was asking Tk 2,000 a kg for 600g hilsa.

Seller Nur Alam told Jago News: "I couldn't get fish at the arot in the morning. These fish were bought from the ghat just a short while ago."

Pointing, he said: "There isn't a single shop over there with hilsa. Everyone came back from the arot in the morning, and many are selling other fish."

Ulon bazar is close to Rampura bazar, and there too only one shop was selling hilsa. Seller Monir Hossain said: "Since Eid, the price of hilsa has gone up by about Tk 600 to Tk 800 a kg."

Monir Hossain was asking Tk 3,200 a kg for hilsa weighing 1kg 300g, which puts the price of each of his fish close to Tk 4,000.

One buyer was leaving without having a hilsa weighed. "It (hilsa) is beyond our buying power. Sometimes we have to buy it because the family asks for it, and now we had some relatives over, so I wanted to buy some. But how can we buy when the price is this high?" he said.

Meanwhile, Professor Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser of the interim government, has given approval in principle to a proposal to fix prices at source to keep hilsa within ordinary buyers' purchasing power, and has directed the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock to take steps. Since then, however, the Dhaka market has become even more unstable.

News that the price-fixing proposal is being finalised has also drawn a negative reaction from traders. Traders in Chandpur have warned they will stop sales if hilsa prices are fixed. Sellers say the move is completely unreasonable and that selling hilsa at a fixed price is impossible, so the government's decision will never be implemented.

Visits to several other Dhaka markets found 300-400g hilsa selling at Tk 1,200 to Tk 1,400 a kg, depending on the market, and 800g hilsa at Tk 2,200 a kg and upwards.

Sellers also said the hilsa season has not fully begun yet, and what is available now is selling at the highest prices in history. The rise is not just a recent trend: hilsa prices have been high for a long time.

Hilsa are caught in the country all year round, but most are caught at the end of the monsoon. Hilsa expert Md Anisur Rahman, a former director of the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, said larger quantities of hilsa start to be caught from May and June, and the most are found from September to mid-November. Such high hilsa prices in the first half of July are in no way justified, he said.

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