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Bewildered fish farmers in Barisal

3,811 out of 5,000 listed farms empty in Barisal, Tk 9 cr fishes washed away

Akter Faruk Shah in, Barisal
Aziz Mia cultivated fish in 15 ponds in Ahailjhara this year, five owned by him and 10 leased from others at Tk 12 lakh.
He had hoped sales at over Tk 30 lakh in two months and invested money by borrowing from banks and NGOs and selling a part of his ancestral land.
All his hopes are now washed away by surging floods. He even can not locate his ponds. There are vast sheets of water all around. He is now worried how to repay the loans.
Aziz Mia now moves from one place to another on a boat cursing his luck.
There are several thousand fish farmers in the district like Aziz Mia.
During a visit on Friday, many fish farmers were seen trying to protect fishes by putting nets on submerged banks of ponds.
But this is a futile effort because fishes have already gone out of most of the ponds due to the sudden rise in water level, said Kabir and Habib of Goila village and Milon Mallick of Sheral inAgailjhara.
The small quantities they are netting have to be sold at throwaway prices as traders are not coming from other
districts due to flood. The quantity sold at Tk 4,000 earlier is not selling even at Tk 300 now, they said.
Very few fish farmers could take protective measure.
Habib Khan of Gouranadi cultivated fish in 34 ponds and enclosures. On hearing the news of rushing floodwater, he collected all the big mother fishes, preserved those in a big pond and protected it with nets. Yet the loss would be around Tk 17 lakh, he told this correspondent.
According to the district fishery department, out of about 5,000 farms enlisted with it, fishes in 3811 have been washed away by floodwater. They estimated the loss at around Tk 9 cr 16 lakh. Over one lakh people were engaged in the 5000 fish farms.
Besides the enlisted farms, about 2000 small ponds and water bodies have been equally affected. The loss is yet to be estimated.
Fishery officials said steps would be taken to rehabilitate the fish farmers after flood.