Story: Hilsa Imports in the Land of Hilsa!

Bangladesh, once known as the world's leading Hilsa exporter, is now facing a strange reality. Due to insufficient supply in the domestic market and prices going beyond the reach of the common man, it has to import a large amount of Hilsa from neighboring India. Whereas Indians used to wait for the season every year for Hilsa from the Padma River.

In the first two months of the current fiscal year, namely July and August, 19 registered importing companies imported more than 3.5 lakh kg (350 tons) of Hilsa worth about 7 crore taka through Benapole land port. Due to the acute shortage of Hilsa in the domestic market, skyrocketing prices of fish, and comparatively low prices of imported fish, traders have resorted to this trade extensively.

According to sources, customs officials and traders, in recent years, river pollution, indiscriminate killing of jatka, use of current nets, sand mining and uncontrolled fishing at sea have severely disrupted the reproduction and production of hilsa in Bangladeshi waters. As a result, there has been an extreme shortage of Padma Hilsa in the domestic market and the price of a kilogram of good quality Hilsa has risen to Tk 2,800.

In contrast, various states in India, especially Bharuch and the estuary of the Narmada river in Gujarat, have caught a large number of Hilsa this year, which has ensured a surplus supply of fish and relatively low prices there. According to the West Bengal Chilled Fish Exporters Association, about 500 metric tons of Hilsa have been exported to Bangladesh through West Bengal in the last two months, the bulk of which comes from faraway Gujarat. These Hilsa from Gujarat are large in size and are full of eggs, so they are in demand in Bangladesh and the international market. Traders are benefiting a lot from this as they can be bought at a low price and brought back to the country through the Petrapole-Benapole border and sold at a low cost.

The concerned officials including the Director General of the Department of Fisheries said that permission has been given to import this fish on a limited scale in view of the special request of traders, because the import of Hilsa is not legally prohibited. However, the fact that India is dependent on fish in a country where the vast majority (about 70 to 80 percent) of the world's total Hilsa production is produced is very significant and a matter of concern.

Now Bangladesh is not only importing. Bangladesh has failed miserably in achieving the Hilsa export target in the last fiscal year. Officials say that Bangladesh has exported less than 110 tons of Hilsa against the target of exporting 120 tons. Although a six-year project was taken in 2020 to increase Hilsa production. But how effective it has been has now been questioned by the Director General of the Department of Fisheries, Dr. Md. Khaled Kanak himself.

He said, "There was a project worth four billion taka to increase Hilsa production. We need to examine how much it worked during the previous government or whether there was negligence. We need to find out why Hilsa production has decreased."

Hilsa researchers believe that this crisis has arisen due to the damage to the migratory route or movement path of Hilsa and excessive pollution. Those concerned are questioning the effectiveness of the past Hilsa production increase projects taken at a cost of more than four billion taka. Experts emphasize that instead of trying to control the market through temporary imports, it is important to take long-term and strict policy steps to protect the Hilsa breeding grounds and preserve the jatka, otherwise there is a fear of losing the market for this traditional fish forever.  (Based on online information) -Editor