The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The price of different sizes of hilsha fish is showing a high trend despite its adequate supply in the city markets yesterday.

The high price of hilsha fish is depriving consumers from getting the delicious taste of it.

However, fish traders claimed the price of this silvery delicacy was unlikely to go down in the next couple of weeks due to its short supply in the markets.

A hilsha weighing about half kilogram was selling yesterday between Tk 400 and Tk 450, which was Tk 280 to Tk 300 a few weeks ago. One-kilogram hilsha fish was sold at Tk 800 to Tk 1,000 in the local markets yesterday.

People of low and middle-income group said skyrocketing prices of essential items made them unable to purchase hilsha fish from the markets.

Unscrupulous fish traders with an excuse of short supply of hilsha fish are deliberately increasing the price of it, said customers in the city markets.

I used to buy hilsha fish every week but nowadays it is not possible for me to buy any even in a month due to excessive high price, said a schoolteacher, who usually buys fish from vendors in front of the National Board of Revenue building.

The Government's intervention is needed from the level of fishermen to retailers to bring down the price of hilsha, they opined.

Traders at Sawari Ghat Fish Market in the city said fishermen in the coastal areas are not catching sufficient quantity of hilsha fish from the sea that resulted in the high price of it.

They, however, hoped that the price of hilsha fish would come down to a tolerable level within the next one month.

According to the Department of Fisheries, the annual demand of hilsha in the country is about three lakh metric tones against the production of two and a half lakh metric tones a year, resulting in a deficit of 50,000 metric tones.

Some 2,500 tones of Hilsha are exported to Europe and America, while 65,000 to 70,000 tones of Hilsha are exported to India every year, said a leader of Bangladesh Frozen Fish Exporters Association (BFFEA).