This 'Pohela Baisakh' may end without Hilsa

For the fish lovers, this Bengali New Year may not bring any excitement as the nationwide lockdown has turned out to be the biggest impediment in importing Hilsa fish from Bangladesh.

The “Hilsa fish” has been always considered to be a delicate item in the Bengali New Year menu and largely imported from Bangladesh. As the lockdown is scheduled to continue until April 14 next and there are no fish quarantine centre in the North East, the fish traders were expecting that Hilsa fish might not be available in large extent in the market by the new year eve.

Speaking to this reporter, Babul Das, a fish importer said that attempts were being made to make Hilsa available in the markets otherwise; the traders would incur huge losses.

“According to our information necessary information has been sought from the authorities to at least import one consignment of Hilsa ahead of the Bengali new year but no positive response reached us yet,” said Babul.

On the other hand, the local fish markets are reeling under the serious crisis of fish. Moreover, the consumption of fish had also decreased drastically in fear of the Coronavirus. Every day, about 70 to 80 ton of fish was imported from Bangladesh and Andhra’s South Godavari part. From both, the places almost equal number of fish consignments use to come. But, as the COVID 19 was reported in both places, fish import had been stopped completely.

“No fish is coming from outside the state. Fish from Andhra Pradesh has been stopped last week whereas consignment stopped coming from Bangladesh as soon as the lockdown was announced”, said sources monitoring the market.

All Tripura Merchant Association General Secretary Sujit Ray said, “As of now, the total fish stock in Tripura markets stands at 1.3 tons”.

People who love to eat non-veg are preferring to eat eggs and chicken. The present stock of egg in the state now stands at more than 24 lakh and it is being transshipped from Karimganj regularly, he added.