The commerce ministry is under mounting pressure from the businesses to withdraw the ban on hilsa export, said officials. ‘Demands from the businessmen to remove the restriction have risen recently,’ commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed told New Age on Tuesday.
Mahbub last week visited India where the businessmen of the neighbouring country also urged him to withdraw the ban.
The commerce secretary, however, said it was not an appropriate time to say whether they would review the ban.
The government imposed the ban more than a year ago to check the hilsa price which had skyrocketed then in the local market.
The silvery delicacy has great attraction to the people of Indian city of Kolkata where availability of the coveted fish in official channel has become almost zero.
With the peak season and huge catches in the rivers in Bangladesh the hilsa are now being smuggled across the border into India.
The law enforcing
agencies seized huge quantity of hilsa while being smuggled to India in last two months.
Different points of about 200-kilometre-long border of the south-western region from Satkhira to Jibonnagar of Jhenidah and the waterways of Satkhira along the Sundarbans are allegedly used for the purpose.
Another commerce ministry official, however, said the ministry was
going to review the decision soon because of mounting pressure from the businesses.
He said the ministry had taken initiative to withdraw the ban in last April, but did not do so fearing criticisms.
Local businessmen exported 6,173.66 tonnes of fresh, chilled and frozen hilsa through land border with India worth Tk 2.82 billion in 2011-12.
Of the total hilsa export, 82.95 per cent was fresh hilsa.
-With New Age input
