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Assistance yet to reach fishermen

Left with no choice, many in Munshiganj are defying ban on netting hilsa

Our Correspondent, Munshiganj
With only three days left for the ban on fishing hilsa to end, fishermen in the district are yet to get rice as assistance from the government.
Local fisheries officials yesterday said they were preparing a list of beneficiaries and would distribute rice among fishermen on Sunday, the last day of the 22-day ban.
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Being left without support, a group of fishermen have been netting hilsa in the Padma and selling them at different shoals of the river all night long, locals said.
To discourage the netting of brood hilsa and jatka (hilsa fry) from October 7-28, the government, like previous years, decided to give 20kg rice to each fisherman as compensation under its Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) programme. This period is considered the peak spawning season of hilsa.
Such bans in the recent years have impacted positively on hilsa production.
Many fishermen in Munshiganj said they were netting hilsa violating the ban as they didn’t have any other alternative means of earning to run their family.
Md Amanullah, representative of Jatiya Matsyajibi Samity in Munshiganj and also the general secretary of District Matsya Samity, said distribution of rice would have served as an encouragement to local fishermen to abide by the government ban.
He stressed the need for ending the use of gill nets by fishermen to ensure
total suspension of hilsa fishing during the ban period.
Sources at the Munshiganj Sadar upazila nirbahi office said families of 3,671 fishermen would get rice as assistance, first of its kind in the district.
The government has allotted 7914.18 tonnes of rice for families of 395,709 fishermen in 29 districts, including Munshiganj.
About 3,000 fishermen out of the total 9,813 in Munshiganj earn their livelihood by catching hilsa. The disaster management ministry has allotted 73.42 tonnes of rice for six upazilas in the district.
Nasir Uddin, seniorupazila fisheries officer of Munshiganj Sadar upazila, said they received the rice allotment letter from the district administration on October 22.
He said a union-level committee, comprised of an UP chairman, an UP member, a fisheries department official and a representative of the fishermen, was preparing a list of fishermen. Rice would be distributed among the fishermen on Sunday, he added.
He said they would supply the rice from the government silo in
Munshiganj.
About the delay in distribution, he said it happened because they had no previous experience of receiving allocation of rice for fishermen.
FISHING GOES ON
On Sunday, the Munshiganj Sadar upazila fisheries department, thana police and river police jointly conducted drives on Jhautiar Char in Louhajang. The team arrested 23 fishermen, sentenced them to different jail terms and imposed fine on many of them. It also seized 15 lakh metres of gill nets.
However, hilsa was up for sale at a market in the same area in the evening.
Witnesses said several hundred fishing boats were anchored on the bank of the Padma at Jhautiar Char on Monday evening. Many fishermen were preparing to catch hilsa at night.
Hilsa were being sold in the area. The crowd of buyers got bigger as the night progressed.
Locals said one would see the biggest crowd deep into the night. The nearby Kanaksar Bazar Trawler Ghat would remain open all night long.