DIGHA: The Digha Estuary in East Midnapore district of West Bengal has Eastern India's biggest market for salt water fish. On Saturday, the fishermen had a catch of 121 Telia Bhola fishes and that too by a single fishing trawler. The estimated price of the catch is around Rs 2 crore. The fishermen of the 'Bisheshwari' trawler had the credit of the catch. Each fish weighed around 18 kilogrammes.
The catch is being put on action following an initiative by Deegha Estuary Fishermen and Fish Trader’s Association. This is the first catch of Telia Bhola fish in the New Year. Fish trader, Girish Chandra Raut informed that this species of fish moves in groups in the deep sea. “They mainly move in those parts of the sea where the fishermen are not allowed to venture,” he said.
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Local fishermen said that generally this particular variety of fish fetches a price of around Rs 13,000 a kilogramme. They said that Telia Bhola fishes generally move around in the deep sea in groups. Sometimes some of them get isolated from the groups when they get trapped in the fishing nets. There are instances of catches of bigger varieties of Telia Bhola from Digha estuary.
They are expensive since their body parts are used in the manufacturing of life-saving capsule covers. However, the prices of the eggs of this variety are not too costly.
