BHUBANESWAR: This may be bad news for fish-lovers of the Capital. With acute shortage of labourers creating huge supply disruption, fish traders of the City have decided to stop the sale from Tuesday till the lockdown is lifted.“While fish supply from Andhra Pradesh has come down drastically, amid restrictions imposed by the administration on retail trading due to the global health crisis, it is impossible to keep the business running,” said S K Mustafa, a wholesaler and exporter of fish and prawn of Unit-IV market.
In normal times, fish requirement of the Capital and its periphery is around 50 tonne (equivalent to 50,000 kg) with a daily cash transaction of around `60 lakh. The market has now witnessed a drastic fall in demand to 10 tonne due to closure of hotels, restaurants and roadside eateries after imposition of lockdown. The volume of trade reduced further due to restriction on fishing activities coupled with loading and unloading and transportation problems.
“We sustained a huge loss during the two-day shutdown of the city by the administration. Fish is a highly perishable item. In the absence of cold storage facility, the stock with the wholesalers became a waste,” said Mustafa, who is also general secretary of Jay Jawan Matsya Byabasayee Sangh.
The closure of the Unit-IV market, the fish hub of the City, has further compounded the problem of retail trading. Around 120 retail traders have to close their shops after their relocation to other places around the market due to logistic problem and difficulty in maintaining social distancing, he added.
“It was a humongous task for the retail traders to ensure social distancing during trade hours. We had to face the wrath of the police as it is beyond our capacity to regulate the crowd. We decided to stop sale of fish till the lockdown is over,” said Kalia Behera, one of the retail fish traders.The closure of fish trade will hit the livelihoods of around 10,000 families in the city. Behera said the supply of local fish to the market was equally hit as fishermen are not venturing out due to the lockdown.