With the government banning the import of fish from outside the state, vendors have resorted to frozen fish meant for exports to make ends meet. Vendors in the Panaji market who would otherwise sell fish brought from outside the state during the 61-day monsoon ban on fishing, approached fish exporters in Goa to purchase frozen fish to supply mackerels. About ten to twelve of us have started to bring boxes of frozen fish in the market in our personal vehicles. We are only getting mackerels because there is guaranteed sale of this fish species. Locals purchase it for their own consumption, while restaurant owners use it for their thalis, said fish vendor Manjunath Nayak. Chief executive of Atlas Fisheries at Old Goa, Estevan D’Souza said, A lot of locals have been coming and buying from us, many of whom may be fish vendors as well. But we don’t directly sell frozen fish in the market. We have a retail counter at the factory with an FDA licence wherein we sell all types of frozen fish. One box of mackerels at Rs 1,400 carries ten kgs of fish. The vendors are selling this frozen fish at a price of Rs 100 for five pieces. The same amount of mackerels (sourced from other states) were being sold for Rs 200 before being banned by the state government. It’s been nearly a week since we’ve resorted to bringing frozen fish from factories. With more and more shortage of fish in the state, it has become difficult to find reliable sources, said a fish vendor, Baby Nair. A modest quantity of fish procured from a fish plant at Cuncolim Industrial Estate propped up the business of half of the vendors in Quepem fish market, as other markets in Sanguem and Curchorem were mostly deserted. Fish vendors kept convincing customers that the fish was free of formalin and procured from a fish plant, but some customers refused to buy it. A vendor, Shivaji Shetkar said that instead of sitting at home, they thought that fish can brought from Cuncolim fish plant to cater to public demand. Mostly all vendors had bought mackerels and gobre from the unit that is only involved in packaging and exporting the fish out of India. Owner of Sagar Fish Plant, Mohamad Ashraf told TOI that looking at public demand, they sold the fish in small quantities to vendors on Thursday. The plant has a capacity of 1,000 tonnes to store the fish, but at present they have only 20 tonnes remaining in stock. The fish at the plant is stored at minus 20 degree celcius, and can be preserved for up to 18 months. Most of the fish is obtained from Goan fishermen, said Ashraf. Vendors are, however, optimistic that things will fall back in place once the monsoon fish ban comes to an end and the fishing season starts from August 1 onwards.