More than 0.12 million tonnes of marine fish have been acquired from the Bay of Bengal in the last fiscal year, an increase by more than 11,000 tonnes over the previous year.
The collection from the Bangladesh water in the Bay of Bengal in 2017-18 reached 1, 22,088 tonnes against the volume of 1, 08, 479 tonnes in the previous year (2016-17), sources in the Fisheries Quarantine office of the Marine Fisheries Department in Chattogram said.
As many as 250 commercial trawlers caught the marine fish including 3, 682 tonnes of shrimps. The acquired volume of other varieties including Hilsa, Rupchanda and Surma in the last fiscal was 1, 16, 406 tonnes.
In 2016-17, the commercial trawlers caught 3,219 tonnes of Shrimps and 1, 05, 260 tonnes of other varieties of marine fish.
Fisheries Quarantine Officer Abdullah Al Mamun said there are 37 steel body trawlers for catching shrimps and 97 wood body and 119 steel body trawlers for catching other fish.
He said that the catches increased due to strict ban on fish catching in the breeding area for 65 days ahead of the Full Moon in the Bengali month of Ashwin.
The shrimps caught from mid water of the Bay include varieties like Tiger, White, Brown and other categories, he said.
Most of the trawlers go to the Bay from Chattogram for catching fish while only four to five trawlers go from Mongla.
The steel body trawlers get approval for 30 days for catching fish from the Bay while the wood body trawlers get 15 days from the Marine Fisheries office.
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