Poverty kept Nuruzzaman Mia from finishing primary school. To escape unemployment he went to Saudi Arabia, but when he returned home after five years he found himself jobless again, and felt he had to do something in his own country. That Nuruzzaman, from Karimganj in Kishoreganj, is now known in Rupganj, Narayanganj, as Shahabul Bepari. Eight years ago he left his home district for Golakandail Natun Bazar in Rupganj, where he set up the first wholesale market for kuchia (freshwater mud eel).

The kuchia trade has brought prosperity to Nuruzzaman's family. He now has his own house and land, and his three children are in school. Having started on a friend's advice with Tk 50,000 in capital, he now exports about Tk 2 crore worth of kuchia from Rupganj a year. "Abroad I had to work under someone else. Now about 70 hunters collect kuchia under me and support their families," he said.

Four wholesalers like Nuruzzaman sell about 12 tonnes of kuchia a month from Rupganj to wholesale markets in the capital. About 300 hunters collect the eels from water bodies across Rupganj. From natural sources alone, Rupganj's kuchia traders earn about Tk 6 crore in foreign currency a year.

Natun Bazar in Golakandail union lies beside the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, and the hunters live in the surrounding area. On 1 July, Nuruzzaman and several other kuchia hunters and wholesalers in the Natun Bazar area said that in the rainy season the eels are caught with traps called "chai" and "oka", and in the dry season by hand or with hooks. A hunter can catch three to four kg a day on average and sells it to local wholesalers at Tk 200 to Tk 350 a kg. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the wholesalers sell the eels in Uttara in the capital, from where they are exported to China, Hong Kong, Japan and other countries.

Sanatan Sarkar, a wholesaler from Habiganj, has been in the kuchia trade for about 40 years, a business handed down in his family. Seeing the potential in Rupganj, he has lived with his family in the Masabo area of Golakandail for the past five years. He said people mainly from Sylhet and Kishoreganj have been catching kuchia in Rupganj for a decade, many of them for extra income alongside other work. Besides Nuruzzaman and Sanatan Sarkar, Santosh Bepari of the Taltala area and Amin Mia of Natun Bazar also sell Rupganj's kuchia in the capital.

Omar Ali used to work at a garment factory in Rupganj. When it closed about seven years ago he lost his job, and finding no other work he began catching kuchia. The eels now support him, his wife and two children well. But he is worried: indiscriminate filling of water bodies by housing companies, chemical-laden water from dyeing factories spreading into them, and fishing with poison are steadily destroying the kuchia's natural sources in Rupganj.

Mozammel Haque, a kuchia exporter in Uttara, told Prothom Alo that Bangladesh is in a very good position in kuchia exports, bringing in remittances and reducing unemployment. But the business cannot grow much on natural sources alone, he said; attention must turn to kuchia farming. Kuchia exporters should get special facilities like shrimp exporters, and care must be taken that no one catches kuchia during the breeding season. He sees kuchia farming as an easy way to reduce unemployment.

Narayanganj fisheries officer Enayet Hossain said: "We are earning foreign currency mainly by collecting kuchia from natural sources. But to take this promising sector forward, kuchia farming on a large scale is essential. We are trying to get young people interested in it." He said the filling of water bodies and the spread of chemical-laden water are disrupting the kuchia's natural breeding. Small kuchia caught in the wild are raised to a larger size, but it has not yet been possible to produce young in Bangladesh. Protecting water bodies is the most urgent need to keep this important fish alive, he said.

Source: Prothom Alo. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.