Flouting rules, fishermen flood markets with smaller hilsas

KOLKATA: The hilsa season is here, but something is amiss about the succulent, silvery delight, without which no monsoon platter is complete. The fish has shrunk in size. About 60%-70% of the catch that reached Kolkata over the last three days weighs less than 500g. The smaller hilsas don’t quite taste like the adult ones, agree both buyers and sellers.

About 500 tonnes of hilsa reached Kolkata from Digha and Diamond Harbour between Thursday and Saturday. It has pushed down the price a tad. A 500g hilsa is now selling for Rs 550-600. While the supply has made fish lovers happy, the decrease in the size of the fish has come as a dampener.

Wholesellers and fish experts believe indiscriminate fishing is responsible for the smaller hilsas flooding the market this time. Secretary of Fish Importers’ Association Anwar Maqsood said, “This trend started a few years ago with smaller hilsas being caught in large numbers. Over the years, despite laws banning netting of small fish, nothing has changed.”

Hilsa supply had been scarce till this week. With import from Bangladesh stopped six years ago, Myanmar is the lone source. But the hilsa season in Myanmar is from February to March. So the imported fish are stored for the local season which begins in July. “The fish naturally loses freshness and taste. But this time, the Myanmar stock is exhausted,” said a retailer.

It is illegal to catch hilsas weighing less than 500g . A net size has been specified to ensure that the smaller ones are not caught. But lax enforcement of the rules has failed to check indiscriminate fishing. Oceanographer Sugata Hajra, who has been part of several studies on the dwindling hilsa catch, said, “Hilsas are caught randomly in Bengal. Fishermen often break the rules. As a result, the fish are not able to grow. Also rampant fishing at the mouth of the sea has not spared those that are on the way to lay eggs in the rivers.”

“This routinely happens every year,” he said. The average size of the hilsa will remain below 600g in Kolkata unless fishing rules are adhered to immediately, said a pisciculture (fish farming) expert. “Adult hilsas swim into the rivers to lay eggs and swim back once the spawns attain a weight of around 300g. The only way out is to restrict the size of the fishing nets to ensure that smaller hilsas are not caught,” Hajra said.