About 10 lakh worth of spawns collected from the river Halda this year have been damaged after they were kept in government hatcheries in excess of their capacity.

The high hopes of fishermen, who have collected the highest quantity of spawns in the last 10 years, were suddenly doomed to a huge loss.

Lack of precaution of the fishermen and incompetence of hatchery technicians were blamed for the damage.

Four fishermen--Sridham Jaladas, Rakhal Jaladas, Matilal Jaladas and Sunil Jaiadas--had kept all 96 buckets of their collected eggs in seven cisterns at Shah Madari hatchery.

The spawns outweighed the cisterns and were completely damaged. They were worth more than Tk 10 lakh, the victims said.

Officials said the highest capacity of each cistern was six buckets of spawns, meaning that the 96 buckets of spawns required a dozen cisterns, almost double the current number.

Sridham Jaldas said he collected 25 buckets of spawns and kept all of them in two cisterns of a Hathazari hatchery.

"I needed at least six cisterns but I have got only two from the government hatchery, which were not sufficient for hatching the eggs”, he said.

"Renting five boats for Tk 20,000, I collected the spawns. I hoped I would earn a handsome amount from the sale of the hatched fish to fry collectors".

"No one gave us any idea of the capacity of the cisterns at the hatchery", the affected fisherman lamented.

Asu Barua, who put the collected spawns in three cisterns at Madunaghat Hatchery in Hathazari, met with a similar fate—all eggs were damaged.

The affected fishermen alleged that the fisheries department authorities and technicians of the hatcheries did not caution them about the capacity of the cisterns.

The authorities, however, denied the

accusation and claimed they had conveyed the matter to the fishermen earlier.

Mohammad Jakir Hossain, fisheries officer of Hathazari upazila, said the affected spawn collectors had no preparation of mud-made ditch for hatching the eggs, so they put too many spawns in the cisterns in excess of their capacity.

“This year the fishermen have collected a huge quantity of eggs, more than they had expected. It was the highest catch in the last 10 years", he said.

Experts have blamed the negligence of the authorities and lack of expertise of technicians at the hatcheries for the spawn damage.

Every year fishermen make ditches on the river bank for hatching spawns. But after the Fisheries Department set up eight hatcheries on the banks of the Halda, fishermen cast aside the traditional method for the past few years.

Manzoorul Kibria, a zoology professor at Chittagong University, said, “Lack of knowledge of the staff of the hatcheries is the reason behind the spawn damage".

He also said, “The new generation of fishermen is forgetting the indigenous knowledge of hatching eggs in the mud-made ditches because of the introduction of hatcheries”.

Prof Kibria, also a Halda researcher, feared that it would cause a big financial loss to the poor fishermen in the future if the new generation forgot indigenous way ofhatching.

There are eight government hatcheries along the Halda-four of them in Hathazari upazila and another four in Madunaghat, Machhua Ghona, Gar Duara and Shah Madari.

This year the indigenous species of fishes have released a huge amount of eggs in the river Halda on June 1, providing fishermen more spawns than expected.