Export is stopped, but the price of hilsa is not decreasing
September 18, 20243 Mins Read
Jumbangla Desk: The full season of hilsa is going on. The national fish of Bangladesh is also closed for export to India. But the price is high. The situation has reached such a level that common people cannot even think of buying this fish.

Hilsa

Their question, why is the price of hilsa so high in the full season even after the export is closed?

Fishermen and traders have blamed the high prices on the scarcity of hilsa at sea, rising costs of hilsa fishing and rough weather.

Recently, going to Patuakhali's Mahipur fish landing center, it was seen that trawlers are entering one after another through the creek of Khaprabhanga river through the estuary of the Bay of Bengal. Hilsa is taken out of the belly of the trawler and taken to the jetty. However, most of the hilsa that are seen are small.

At the end of the bargain, hilsa is loaded with ice in a cork sheet from the jetty to the truck. From here, the hilsa will go to the kitchen through various markets including Dhaka.

When asking the fishermen from the Bay of Bengal for the reason of catching small hilsa, they counter-questioned, where is the big hilsa?

When asked about the reason for the high price of hilsa, Mahipur BFDC manager Shariful Islam said that there is a supply shortage.

Highlighting the statistics, he said that 152 tons of hilsa were brought by fishermen to this ghat in the fiscal year 2023-24.

However, only 25 tons of hilsa have arrived in the current fiscal year. During the hilsa season there is a big change in the weather. So the fishermen could not go to the deep sea. That is why the fish did not come to the ghat.

Barisal Port Road Hilsa Market is crowded with buyers every morning.

Went there and found that Hilsa weighing 250 to 300 grams is being sold at Tk 600 to Tk 700 per kg.

Hearing the price, a buyer named Shamim Hossain said sarcastically, 'Hearing the price of red-eyed hilsa, it seems that it has been taken from Kirtankhola and brought directly to the Port Road market! The old red hilsa of the Bay of Bengal has no taste, no smell! Why is it so expensive, I don't understand anything, brother.'

Zahir Sikder, dealer of Port Road, said that during floods and rains, 300 to 400 maunds of hilsa were sold every day at Port Road in the city. Not more than 100 to 150 maunds of hilsa come to the market for a few days. Due to this, the price has skyrocketed.

He said, yesterday Wednesday, one kilogram of hilsa was sold at Port Road for 1,800 taka, 700 to 800 gram hilsa for 1,600 and small hilsa for 800 to 900 taka.

Barisal Divisional Fisheries Office Deputy Director Nripendra Nath Biswas said that in previous years, the government used to allow the export of 3 to 5,000 tonnes of hilsa to India during Durga Puja. However, considering the shortage in the country, the government has decided to impose a ban on the export of hilsa this year. So naturally the price of hilsa should be within reach. But the extraction of hilsa is much less than the demand. Apart from that, the increase in the price of logistics in hilsa hunting has affected the price. On top of that, the bad weather has put the fishermen in trouble. As a result, Hilsa is not available to the general public.