The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Bottom falls out of retail fish trade in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 06, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Bottom falls out of retail fish trade in city

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, JAN. 5. With few takers for seafood in the city after last week's tsunami strike, Chennai's fish traders are making ends meet by using their catch to feed poultry animals in farms across the State and in Andhra Pradesh.

Citing the rumour of hazardous zulican virus spreading through seafood as the reason for the heavy losses incurred in the last 10 days, the wholesale fish traders today said they were left with little option but to sell the fish at a lower price to poultry farms in Salem and Namakkal.

K.S.M. Darmalingam, general secretary of the Fish, Prawns and Perishables Wholesale Merchants Association at Chintadripet said: "What was sold for Rs. 100 ten days ago has no buyers today even when offered at Rs. 10. We have no choice but to sell fish worth Rs. 100 to poultry farms for Rs. 20 a kg."

As the virus rumours drove away buyers, the traders incurred a loss of Rs. 50 crores in the past week. The seafood trade, accounting for the sale of over 50 tonnes every day in 60 markets in Chennai, had declined so badly that not even one tonne was sold a day after the tsunami ravaged the coastal areas, he added. The daiy turnover of Rs. 5 crores has dwindled considerably.

Quoting experts in the Tamil Nadu Veterinary Medical College and ecologists, D.Y.Mohammed Saliha, president of the association, said that it was safe to consume seafood after tsunami as long as the product was not found to have decayed.

With over one lakh people dependent on the fish trade, including 25,000 retail traders, the panic amid public has led the fishermen community, which already suffered loss of lives and equipment, to the brink of losing livelihood, he added.

Muthukrishnan, the president of the Saidapet Cooperative Fish Trade Association said the trade had an annual turnover between Rs. 2,400 crores and Rs. 2,500 crores as foreign exchange.

Besides fishing done in a few pockets of the city, the traders also have goods from other States such as Kerala, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

They reiterated that measures were taken to ensure quality.

D. Ponnurangam, president of the Zam Bazaar Sea Food Merchants Association appealed to the Government to provide funds for the rehabilitation of fishermen and traders.

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