Tangail fish farmers suffer Tk 25cr losses for floods
A grim future awaits almost 5,000 fish farmers of Tangail whose investments were washed away in recent floods in all save among the district's 12 upazilas.
The majority of the farmers had taken loans from banks, non-governmental organisations and moneylenders to get their farms ready to go.
Although authorities make lists every year of those afflicted for floods, almost no reach avail financial assistance.
Very worried over how they would repay loans, Mizanur Rahman of Aloa village and Shahed Bepari of Beradoma village in Tangail sadar upazila described to The Daily Star how they watched nature claim fish worth lakhs of taka right before their eyes.
That they had high hopes for different fish breeds that they had, that was also a matter of pride for them. Both confirmed of obtaining no government assistance till date.
In line with the district fisheries office, fish in a few 5,454 water bodies of 4,792 farmers have been washed away.
Giving a breakdown, they said the fish could possibly be up to 1 1,276 tonnes in total weight and worth Tk 20.19 crore. That is excluding the loss of some 1.85 crore small fries worth Tk 4.15 crore.
Alternatively, the harm to infrastructure of the fish farms was estimated at Tk 2.59 crore.
This time around fish farmers incurred immense losses for the prolonged and devastating floods due to the onrush of water from upstream and heavy rains, said Golam Kibria, the district fisheries officer.
"We have already made assessments of the full total loses, prepared the lists of the afflicted fish cultivators and sent these to the higher authorities," he said.
"The neighborhood flood-affected fish cultivators need urgent financial assist with get over the disaster. We shall provide support to the afflicted farmers after getting allocation from the federal government," he said.
On why farmers never seem to be to end up getting any assistance, he said, "We send lists of all affected fish farmers after each flood seeking government support. But problems arise when the funds allocated can cover only a couple of them."
