Prafulla Chandra Das’ (48) fishing boat and nets have been drying out in the sun. His entire ancestry has been devoted to the same trade, and as such, Prafulla knows no other craft. As fish stocks in the Brahmaputra have drastically decreased over the years, Prafulla is finding it hard to run his six-member family and pay off debt with the little money he earns from fishing.
The angler from Jorgachh Majhipara village under Chilmari upazila in Kurigram is one of 7,000 ancestral fishing families from 105 villages in the district which are suffering the same fate. Most of these families do not even have their own homestead, but live on khas land or other people’s land.
“Even a few years ago, a group of four-five anglers could catch 40-50 kg of fish per day. It has now come down to merely five-six kg, which gets us Tk 200-250 every day,” he told this correspondent. This is not enough for his family, he said, and especially not for the loans he took out at high interest from local moneylenders.
This loan is a common feature of the fisher families’ life. “We are unable to provide for our families with the little money we make from fishing. This is why we’re forced to take loans from the Mahajons,” said Bisadu Chandra Das (47), a neighbour of Prafulla. “The situation is especially bad from December to June, as water level falls during this period,” he added.
Meanwhile, 84-year-old Ashu Chandra Das from Daspara village spoke of another woe. “We are deprived of our rights despite the “Jal Jar Khal Tar” [that allows fishers unobstructed access to waterbodies]. It is only on paper. We aren’t allowed to catch fish in government canals as they are occupied by politically influential people.” Contacted, District Fisheries Officer in Kurigram Kalipada Roy said, “There’s a shortage of fish in the Brahmaputra due to overfishing of mother fish and depletion of water.” “We are trying to help out the ancestral fishers,” he added.