What a waste!

It was a pleasant surprise for the fishermen in Sitakunda when they got huge catches of hilsa in the Bay of Bengal on two consecutive days from Sunday.

However, that pleasure did not last long as most of the fishes had to be dumped into the sea due to lack of buyers and storage facilities.

According to the local fisheries office, some 350 fishermen catch fish using 700 boats in Sitakunda. The upazila has 24 ghats and half of the boats are anchored at the largest ghat -- Kumira Ghat.

Visiting the area yesterday, this correspondent saw hundreds of dead and rotten fish floating in the sea and an adjacent canal. The entire area was thick with foul smell.

“I have been catching fish for 25 years and I have never seen such a huge catch before,” said Samiran Jaladas, 42, referring to their Sunday's catch.

“… we deployed 21 nets ... After we retrieved 11, our boat got filled with fish. So, we had to ditch the hilsha catch from the remaining nets,” he said.

Many other fishermen had a similar experience.

On an average day, they catch around 100 to 120kgs of fish. However, during this season, it ranged between 200 and 600kgs. On Sunday and Monday, some boats caught even a tonne of fish each, The Daily Star learnt after talking to several fishermen.  

The local fisheries office gave similar information.

“After returning to the ghat, we saw fishes being sold at throwaway prices. Still, we failed to find any buyer,” said Samiran.

The fisherman said he sent some fish to a customer for Tk 7,000. With no buyer and no cold storage available, he then sent many more to Chittagong city where the fish was sold for just Tk 8,000 as they had already started to rot.

“We had to dump the rest of the fish into the sea,” said Samiran, adding, “I could earn at last Tk 2 lakh had there been a cold storage here.”

Almost all the fishermen in the ghat dumped one third of their catches on that two days. They demanded a cold storage be set up there immediately.

 Fishermen in Banshbaria union's Boaliakhul Ghat and Sonaichari union's Fakirhat Ghat also had to dump fish for the same reason, locals said.

Nurul Goni, a wholesale buyer at Kumira Ghat, said he bought around 10 tonnes of fish on Sunday. He has been selling fish in Dhaka, Chittagong and other districts for over two decades.

However, some 2.5 tonnes of the hilsa had to be dumped into the Bay as Goni could not afford preservatives like ice and salt due to their high prices.

Fishermen and wholesale buyers at the ghat alleged that local traders hiked the prices of ice and salt following the huge catches.

A piece of ice weighing around 80kgs usually costs Tk 80, but the traders were charging Tk 1,200 for the same quantity on Sunday. Besides, the price of salt was hiked by Tk 8 to Tk 10 a kg.

Upazila Fisheries Officer Selim Reza said they were aware of the incident and that he would inform the higher authorities about the fishermen's demand for a cold storage.