Durga Puja coming, Bangladesh clears export of 3000 tonnes of Hilsa to India

Hilsa imports from Bangladesh

Hilsa exports are banned successful Bangladesh. As a goodwill gesture, however, the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League authorities had allowed a tiny quantity of shipments to India successful September-October each twelvemonth (at the clip of Durga Puja).

But this statement was thrown into uncertainty aft the Muhammad Yunus-led interim authorities took implicit pursuing Hasina’s ouster successful aboriginal August.

Hilsa is affluent successful nutrition and fashionable successful West Bengal, wherever it is designated arsenic the authorities fish. Mostly recovered successful the Hooghly-Bhagirathi stream strategy and successful the Bay of Bengal, Hilsa is an anadromous food — that is, it migrates from the water to rivers for spawning.

Shoals of males and females of the taxon migrate doubly a twelvemonth for breeding successful rivers — mid-February to April and September-October.

According to officials astatine India’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying —the ministry grants the sanitary import licence — importers question support for bringing successful 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of Hilsa each year. Actual yearly imports, however, stay betwixt 1,200 and 1,300 tonnes.

Most Hilsa imports hap successful a 15-day model during September-October done the Petrapole onshore larboard successful West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.

In caller years, Hilsa imports from Bangladesh person seen a drop, portion shipments from Myanmar person increased. Last year, India imported 588.97 tonnes of Hilsa from Myanmar and 573.66 tonnes from Bangladesh. In 2022-23, 149.23 tonnes were imported from Myanmar and 1,309.46 tonnes from Bangladesh.