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Netting of marine fish up in Cox’s Bazar

Our Correspondent | December 03, 2019 00:00:00


COX'S BAZAR, Dec 02: Fishermen in the district are getting large amount of fish from the Bay of Bengal. Over the past few days, local markets have been flooded with various marine fish.

According to Cox's Bazar fish landing centre and fishermen sources, huge hilsa, rupchanda and coral fishes are being caught from the Bay since the last week of November.

At least 200 to 300 fishing trawlers are landing at the fisheries ghat of Cox's Bazar, Teknaf and Moheshkhali with hilsa everyday, sources said.

The landing centre employees said at least 6,2,550 tonnes of hilsa were brought here in November, which was several times more than the previous year.

Meanwhile, at least 1,500 tonnes of hilsa have been caught till March of current year. If hilsa is caught in such amount it will surpass all previous records, they said.

Local fishermen said though they are netting more hilsa since January last, most of those are small sized. Only 40 per cent hilsa were caught which weigh 650 grams while the medium size hilsa weighing 300 to 400 grams and small size one weighting 150 to 250 grams are being netted more.

Because of excessive hilsa netting the price is somewhat low at the landing stations. So the trawler owners are frustrated.

Abu Zafar, owner of FB Allhar Dan fishing trawler of Cox's Bazar town said, "I have 14 fishermen in my trawler. They went to the Bay seven days back and caught three tonnes of hilsa."

Hilsa trader Helal Uddin of fish landing station said, "I do business here with two others jointly. We buy hilsa from the trawlers and send those to Chittagong and Dhaka. We purchased Tk 0.6 million hilsa which we will sell at Tk 1.0 million to 1.2 million in Dhaka," Helal said.

He said, "We buy hilsa weighting 400 grams from the trawlers at Tk 400 per kg while those with lesser weight are bought at Tk 200 to Tk 250 per piece. The hilsa weighting 600 grams is sold at Tk 750 at wholesale rate".

Fisherman Abul Kalam of FB Kawsar fishing trawler of Moheshkhali said during the hilsa season, armed pirates attack on fishermen.

Manager of Cox's Bazar fish landing centre Md Shafiqul Islam said hilsa catching in the Bay has increased in recent days. With the increased netting of hilsa, the amount of toll collected has also increased, he said.

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