The government’s two-month ban on catching, selling, and transporting of Ilish began on Sunday.
A 90-kilometre stretch of the Padma and Meghna rivers here have been turned into a sanctuary for Ilish after the ban came into effect. It will be lifted on May 1.
Md Asadul Baki, district fisheries officer, said they conducted drives from 12am to 1:30am on Sunday but found no fisherman in the two rivers.
Assistant Fisheries Officer Mahbub Rashid of Chandpur Sadar upazila said the authorities declared 90km from Matlab Uttar Upazila’s Shatnol area to Charbhoirabi in Haimchar upazila as sanctuary.
All the upazilas in the district have formed individual taskforce committees to strictly implement the ban, he said.
Ilish traders Shahajan Sardar, Babul Hazi, and Nurul Islam told UNB that a huge amount of Ilish was caught in January and February, which is considered as off season for Ilish fishing.
They hope that the ban would boost production.
Ilish has the highest contribution in the country's fish production as the single fish species, the government says. More than 12.09% of the country's fish production comes from Ilish.
In 2017-18, Ilish production was 5.17 lakh MT, which had an estimated value of around Tk20,680 crore.
