Fishing trawlers have begun returning to Chattogram from the Bay of Bengal after the 22-day ban on hilsa fishing. The boats put to sea on the night of Thursday, 29 October, and started coming back to Fishery Ghat on Friday. But many did not find the catch they had hoped for after the long break.
From Friday morning the landing was busy again: porters unloading baskets, fish sorted by species and size, weighed and iced, wholesalers and traders haggling. Once sorted, the fish is packed in ice in cork-sheet boxes and sent to Dhaka and other districts.
Yet the fishers are not relieved. Some trawlers caught little; others did reasonably well but doubt they will make a profit after costs. Sending one trawler to sea takes a large sum for fuel, ice, food, nets and crew wages, and a poor catch makes it hard to recover.
Catching, carrying, storing and selling hilsa was banned from 8 to 29 October so that the fish could breed. The pause halted work not only for fishers but also for wholesalers, porters, ice factories and transport workers. With trawlers coming back, the landing's economy is moving again.
Although the first trip fell short, the fishers are looking to the next one, hoping more fish in the sea will make up for the break and cover their running costs.
Reporting: Banglanews24, Chattogram.
Photo: Shahidul Hasan Roman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Banglanews24
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