Despite the breeding season ban on catching Hilsha, trading of this fish hasn’t really stopped. Fishermen are managing to evade the administration’s watch and catching Hilsha in the Padma and Jamuna rivers. To avoid being caught for violating the van, they have come up with innovative strategies to sell and transport fish. Such a ploy was uncovered on Friday when Shibaloy upazila nirbahi officer Mehedi Hasan seized a huge amount of Hilsha in a variety of bags which are not used for fish transport, including travel luggage, sacks and even school bags.
Acting on a tip-off, the upazila administration raided an engine-propelled boat on the waterways at Char-Shibaloy and seized nearly 200kgs of Hilsha in possession of traders in the guise of passengers.
The confiscated fish has been distributed among orphanages and madrasas, said Hasab before adding that the arrested fishermen have been sentenced to 5-year jail term.
Rafiqul Alam, senior fisheries official at Shibaloy Upazila said that boats used for catching Hilsha and 200,000 cubic meter of electric net have been destroyed.
On Sept 23, government imposed a ban on catching hilsha during its breeding season from Oct 7 to 28, across a vast area of 7,000 square kilometers along with twenty-seven districts in the country.
The ban came following a meeting of the ministry of fisheries and livestock on 'Mother Hilsha Saving Drive-2018' with state minister for fisheries, Narayon Chandra Chanda, in the chair. The government also banned procurement, marketing, buying, selling, transporting and hoarding of Hilsha during this period. Bangladesh produced over 500,000 tonenes of hilsa fishes in 2017-18 fiscal with hilsha contributing 1.15 percent to its GDP.
Hilsa accounts for 12 percent of the South Asian country’s fish production, which translates to around Tk. 75 billion. With a 9-10 percent growth in annual production, Bangladesh is the biggest source of hilsa, locally known as Ilish, followed by neighbouring India and Myanmar.
Among 11 countries around the world where hilsa is found, only Bangladesh witnessed a rise in production of the dazzling silver creature.
Hilsha is mainly a sea species but prefers to lay its eggs in rivers due to less salinity current. It is caught in all major Bangladeshi rivers, such as the Padma, Meghna and Jamuna, and their Bay of Bengal estuary.
Around half a million people in the coastal areas are involved in Hilsha fishing and over another 2 million are involved in processing, transporting, marketing and export across Bangladesh.