The government is planning to formulate a guideline to support the marine fishing sector which is yet to be flourished.
The prospective industry is drawn into the mired due to proper planning and policy.
About one million tonnes of fish are caught in the Bay of Bengal and on an average, about 0.1 million tonnes of those are caught by Bangladeshi fishermen.
“We have clear instruction from the prime minister to tap marine resources and fishing is one area where a lot of people are engaged and we can bring about changes in the sector,” Maritime Affairs Unit (MAU) Secretary Md Khurshed Alam told the Bangla Tribune.
About one million families are dependent on marine fishing and out of them 0.7 million are fishermen. But, most of them are not the owners of the boats and traditionally sell their catch up-front at a low price.
“We need to support the fishermen to make it a big industry,” Khurshed said.
We are planning to have a pilot project under which modern trawlers will be supplied to the fishermen through cooperative or any other mechanism so that they can get out of age-old system, he said.
Bangladesh has about 70,000 wooden boats and 5,000 trawlers, which catch fish in the shallow water, but we must explore deep sea to get big fishes, he added.
The MAU secretary said, we need to aware the fishermen about overfishing.
“The fishermen have a tendency to discard small fish after they catch big fish and it is just a waste,” he said.
He said more landing site is essential to monitor what type of fish is caught by the fishermen.
“We need to know how much fish and what type of fish we have to ensure maximum sustainable yield,” he said.