Covid-19 red zone areas are barred from exporting fish for sale
The fisheries department of Assam government had decided to provide fish to the residents of Guwahati from 10th April and around 80 quintals of fish is being sold in city every day ever since.
The Kamrup (Metro) district administration, as a part of its COVID-19 precautionary measures, allowed door-to-door sale of local fish in Guwahati from April 10. On the first day around 11 quintals of local fish was sold at the FISHFED counter located in Rupnagar. There are other wholesalers also in three major fish markets of Guwahati – Pandu, Bhetapara and Uzan Bazar who bring local fish and deliver to the local vendors who visit localities to sell fish at the door steps of the residents.
The managing director of FISHFED, Dr DJ Sharma, talking to G Plus said, “We are bringing fish from corporate societies located outside the Kamrup (Metropolitan) districts like Chandrapur, Mayong etc. But we are making sure that fish is being not imported from any of the Covid-19 hotspots.”
Talking about the local markets where wholesalers are bringing fish, Sanjiv Choudhury, the fisheries department official in-charge for local markets said, “We have ordered all the wholesalers not to bring fish from red zone areas. The deputy commissioners and police heads of those districts are also informed that vehicles carrying fish should not be allowed to move or ply outside the districts.”
There are five red zone areas identified in Assam – Golaghat, Nalbari, Dhubri, Goalpara and Morigaon. South Salmara, Lakhimpur, Kamrup, Cachar, Karimganj, Kamrup (Metro) and Hailakandi have been identified as orange zones and rest of the districts are green zones. Therefore the fish wholesalers who are permitted to sell fish claim that they mostly bring fish from Chandrapur and Barpeta.
The fisheries department is not generating any revenue from the fish sale now as they are selling fish at FISHFED at the same prices that they purchase from corporate societies. Small fish like Bhangon, Rohu, Common Carp etc are sold at Rs 250 per kilo whereas fish of more than 1 kilo weight like Rohu, Bhokua etc are sold at Rs 350 per kilo.
The FISHFED is maintaining all norms of social distancing and have also provided uniforms and masks to the fish sellers at the counters.
The wholesalers have also been asked to maintain social distancing norms. Even the fish vendors have been asked to maintain strict social distancing norms while delivering fish in the localities.
FISHFED sells around 20 quintals every day, Pandu – around 8 quintals, Bhetapara – around 25 quintals and Uzan Bazar – around 26 quintals. Hence, around 80 quintals of local fish is being sold in Guwahati amidst the lockdown. There are still residents who claim that there is unavailability of fish. The fisheries department has claimed that after 20th April there will be no shortage of fish.
