GAIBANDHA, Nov 08, 2020 (BSS) – A total of one lakh and 61 thousand meters nets were seized during the Hilsha ban period in the district, officials said.
Department of Fisheries (DoF) officials in cooperation with district and upazila administration seized the nets during the hilsha ban period from October 14 to November 4.
The government imposed a 22-day ban on catching, selling, hoarding and transporting of Hilsa fishes from midnight (October 14) to protect safe spawning of the fish during its peak breeding period and the ban continued till November 4.
During the banning period, drives continued in the river of the Brahmaputra to abstain fishermen from catching hilsha fishes.
An official of DoF yesterday said, a total of 19 mobile courts led by executive magistrates of the DC office were conducted, as at least 146 pieces of Hilsha fishes weighing 37kg were seized from the fishermen while they were fishing in the river.
Apart from it, 1.61 lakh meters of net worth about TK 18.40 lakh were also seized during the drives, he said.
Later the seized net was burnt into ashes in presence of the magistrates.
This year, the government distributed rice to the 5500 registered fishermen living on the bank of the Brahmaputra River stretching from Haldia union under Saghata upazila to Haripur union under Sundarganj upazila.
Each of the fishermen got 20-kg rice under VGF programme of the government.
Haridash Roy, a fisherman of Goghat area under Kamarjani union said, they could not go to river to catch fishes in the ban period imposed by the government.
They could maintain their livelihood with the rice provided by the government, though a few number of unscrupulous fishermen went to the river secretly to catch fishes deifying the ban. But the errant fishermen could not do well in fear of the drives conducted by the fisheries officials.
When the ban was over, they started fishing in the river like the previous times.
District fisheries officer Abdur Dayan told the BSS yesterday that the fishermen abstained from fishing in the river for conducting a number of motivational campaigns on the bank of the river where the fishermen live.
Every motivational campaign was attended by a large number of fishermen along with public representatives and local elite, he added.