Only a few months remain until Durga Puja, the biggest festival of the Hindu community. For Bengalis the festival means new clothes, outings, adda and food, and a Bengali feast is unthinkable without hilsa, meaning the tasty Padma hilsa from across the border.

Ahead of the coming Durga Puja, the Fish Import Association of Kolkata has sent a letter to the Bangladesh government asking for hilsa.

On Tuesday, 29 July, Syed Anwar Maksud, secretary of India's Fish Importers Association, applied to Bangladesh's foreign affairs adviser Touhid Hossain, citing hilsa exports. The letter asks the Bangladesh government to send hilsa to West Bengal and other parts of India to meet demand there during Durga Puja.

The letter says: "With great humility and respect we inform you that, thanks to your kind intervention, last year your office allowed 2,420 metric tonnes of hilsa to be exported to India, for which 'the people of this side of Bengal are deeply grateful to you'." Padma hilsa is a delicacy for fish lovers in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, it says.

The letter also says: "We request you to allow hilsa exports before the upcoming Durga Puja of 2025 begins." This year's Durga Puja falls in September rather than October.

The letter says: "Sir, of the 2,420 metric tonnes of hilsa approved by your office last year, only 577 metric tonnes could be exported. The previous year was the same. Every year we cannot import the full approved quantity, because the export permission comes with a deadline, such as exporting the full quantity within 30 to 45 days. This period is not really enough for such a large quantity. So we suggest and request that you consider allowing hilsa exports without any time limit."

Contacted after the letter was sent, Syed Anwar Maksud, secretary of the Fish Importers Association in Howrah, told Jago News that as every year they have written to the Bangladesh government so that fish can be had from Bangladesh this year for Durga Puja. As the puja falls a little earlier this year, they have asked that the fish come early. He said the Bangladesh government used to give them one month to import the fish, and they have asked that this one-month limit not be imposed so that they can bring in more.

He said analysts have said that if the Bangladesh government supplies no hilsa at all, India will have to rely on hilsa from its own state of Gujarat, from Digha, Kakdwip and Diamond Harbour in West Bengal, and on imports from Myanmar.

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