Bumper 150 tonnes of fish sold at Vizag fishing harbour on Sunday
Taking advantage of most people avoiding chicken due to the bird flu, fish retailers took advantage and jacked up their prices
Visakhapatnam: People swarmed Visakhapatnam Fishing Harbour, one of the largest in the country, on Sunday morning. They purchased 150 tonnes of various varieties of fish. Fishermen have been netting a good harvest in the Bay of Bengal for the past 10 days. Their entire catch is almost getting sold, as most people have stopped buying chicken due to bird flu.
“An average of 4,000 people may have visited the Vizag harbour,” Fisheries department assistant director P. Laxmana Rao told this correspondent in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. He disclosed that on normal days, the sale of fish is around 40–50 tonnes. But on Sunday 150 tonnes of fish had been sold. He said the demand and supply has been proportional.
The assistant director said normally, about 30 per cent of catch goes to the dry fish segment, 30 per cent is sold outside the district and the remaining 40 per cent is sold in the fishing harbour market.
Taking advantage of most people avoiding fish, fish retailers took advantage and jacked up their prices.
“A basket of shrimp sold for ₹800 during the early hours of the day. As crowds swelled, the basket price went up to ₹1,300. Yet people grabbed them,” said Teddu Sankar Rao, one of the early birds who came to the market to buy fish.
Laxmana Rao pointed out that 681 mechanised boats are registered with the Visakhapatnam Port Authority. Of them, 300 venture into the sea. 250 of these boats have adopted hook and line system and sail deep into the sea for a good catch. Other boats are continuing to trawl using gill nets.
“More fishermen will convert to the hook and line method if the government provides subsidy, the assistant director said.
Most of the boats are fitted with transponders, which the government has supplied for free to fishermen for their safety and quick communication. There are also proposals to fit GPS and fish finders on boats, so that fishermen can know where fish are abundant in deep waters, Laxmana Rao disclosed.
According to him, Visakhapatnam Fishing Harbour is being modernised with central funding of ₹151 crore. Spread over 26 hectares, it opened in 1976. The annual turnover of fish at the harbour is presently ₹7,500 crore.