Corona-scared fishermen stay at home, leave city starved of hilsa

Kolkata: Monsoon has peaked, but the city still remains hilsa-starved this year. The prize catch of fish weighing a kilo and beyond has eluded us so far. Very few fishermen are bringing in hilsa supplies to the market and these are in the 350 grams to 500 grams range. Blame it on Covid and the weather, say fishermen, who go out to sea at this time of the year to bring in the silvery treasure.
The Covid scare is keeping fishermen from going out to sea in large groups in trawlers. Usually, they go in groups of 19 people, who stay out in the mouth of the sea for a week and then come back with the catch, sometimes going beyond 14-15 quintals. This year very few trawlers have left Kakdwip and Digha fishing centres, the two big hilsa hubs where the catch first arrives before being taken to the cold stores or markets. Fishermen, who go out in such large groups, make use of the trawls net and the gill net, which are hand-pulled and catch only hilsa.
So, the market at the moment has become dependent only on the personal initiatives of fishermen’s families, who go out in small boats early in the morning, fish throughout the day and come back by night. “Kukrahati to Raichak and Kolaghat are two stretches where such individual initiatives are high but the catch is not much. The problem is though the rule says that you have to use nets that have a minimum of 90 mm mesh so that the small fish or khoka (up to 600 grams) doesn’t get caught,” explained Suman Sahu, a key fisheries department official, who supervises hilsa fishing.
Fisheries minister Chandranath Sinha, too, sounded worried. “The Covid situation is so bad that we are insisting on social distancing everywhere and fishermen are not exempt,” Sinha said.