MANGALURU: With the fish catch dropping due to an increase in temperature at sea, coupled by a rise in diesel price, the supply of fresh fish landing at the Old Port had reduced drastically, leading to 20% to 30% rise in prices of commonly available fish as well as premium fish.
The drop in catch and diesel price hike has been a deterrent for boats venturing into the sea, though the monsoon fishing ban is just a month away.
If on an average, 50 boats used to land at the Old Port during this season last year, the count is barely 10, since the last fortnight.
Adding to this, with only a few varieties of fish being available in the market, and the availability of premium fish in the market coming down, the prices are seeing a steep increase. KFDC sources said that only disco fish (big eye snapper), brown prawns and mackerel are landing in sufficient quantities, whereas the quantity of premium fish like seer and white pomfret are just two boat loads, as against 10-15 during this season last year. Black pomfret have become very rare, with their catch landing in the market only twice or thrice a week, again leading to an increase in price.
There’s no silver fish (anchovy), koddai (coaker) and ade (false trevally), nang (large tooth flounder) available, and what arrives here is from Chennai. With sardines also becoming rare, their price, when available, almost matches with mackerel, which retails around Rs 200/kg.
The price of seer fish and white pomfret is about Rs 900 to Rs 1,000/kg at the landing centres itself. Kaane (lady fish) though available, is also on the pricier side, at Rs 900/kg. “Only if there’s news of good catch, it’ll spur some more boats to venture into the sea. The owners spend around Rs 1 lakh per trip, and without a good catch becomes unprofitable,’’ said a source.
Perhaps, this is for the first time in many years, the catch of fish has become so less, even though fish migrate for breeding during the pre-monsoon month, said the source, adding that this will continue till fishermen locate good schools of fish. Most fishermen have said that they are abstaining from fishing, as the catch is less, and with the escalated fuel price, it is wiser not to go fishing, as they are not assured of breaking even.
