Bhubaneswar: Here’s something that would cheer up fish lovers in the city. The Centre has exempted the fisheries sector from the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has assured traders of logistic support and other cooperation.
They will resume late of fish from Sunday. And the major retail points in the city are located at Jaydev Vihar, Indradhanu Market, Chandrashekharpur, Damana, Badagada Haat and Rabi Talkies Chowk.
To maintain social distancing norms, the Unit IV fish market was earlier shifted to Patel Marg.
Advisor to Jay Jawan Matschya Byabasayee Sangh and a wholesaler S K Mustafa told TNIE that following a meeting with senior officers of the BMC on Friday, they had placed an order for two truck-load of fish (around 12 tonnes) from Andhra Pradesh.
“A decision on whether to increase that mount would be taken after studying the market situation and demand for fish,” he said.
The sale of fish was stopped about six days ago following disruption in supply from Andhra Pradesh amid the lockdown, he added.
“The 5th addendum exempts from lockdown restrictions the operations of the Fishing (Marine)/Aquaculture Industry, including feeding and maintenance, harvesting, processing, packaging, cold chain, sale and marketing; hatcheries, feed plants, commercial aquaria, movement of fish/shrimp and fish products, fish seed/feed and workers for all these activities,” the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement on Friday.
With the Centre issuing fresh guideline, the state government on Saturday decided to relax restrictions on fishing, transportation and marketing of fish and marine products.
The fisheries sector is said to provide livelihood to around 1.6 crore people in the country.
