Vanjiram at ₹1,600/kg: Find other fish to fry

Vanjiram at ₹1,600/kg: Find other fish to fry

 Oppili.P@timesgroup.com 

Chennai : The seafood dinner you planned for the weekend might have to wait. Adverse weather in the past few days meant that the fibre boats which are allowed to enter the sea during the annual fishing ban period (April 15- June 15) stayed ashore, resulting in fish prices skyrocketing across the city. A fisheries department official said that, in Chennai district alone, there are more than 2,500 fibre boats. Of this, only about 200 ventured into the sea last week and majority of them returned with nothing or mini- mum catch.

 Fibre boat owner S Dhanapal of Nochikkuppam said that they go up to Ennore to catch fishes. “All my six boats returned to the shore empty handed. I borrowed money for filling fuel to my boats with a hope that the catch will be good," he lamented. ABalaraman, a vendor at Kasimedu fishing harbour said that before the movement of cyclone Asani, there used to be decent catch. But, in the last three days, no catch arrived at the harbour. 

“A kilo of paarai fish was sold at ₹700/kg, while sankara was priced at ₹500, matthi and kavali were sold at ₹300 and ₹200 respectively. Vanjiram, the most sought after, was sold at ₹1600 per kg last week,” said Balaraman. Avendor from Chintadripet fish market said that usually when the fishing ban is in place on the east coast, the markets source fish from west coast — both Kerala and Karnataka, but this time this was also affected. Only the fishes raised in tanks such as rohu, katla and mrigal are available in the market and their prices too are relatively high, he said