Fish will be back and cheap: Dealers

new delhi: for the past week, fish lovers shopping in chittaranjan park were at a loss. just when the post-monsoon catch should have flooded markets, shopkeepers are pleading shortage. prices appear to have gone up when everyone was looking forward to a season of plenty. ''i was most surprised to find my favourite rohu katla missing, especially since september-october is the peak season for them,'' said rupak mitra, a resident of narmada apartments, kalkaji.mitra, who buys his fish from the cr park market, said prices had also gone up considerably. dealers, however, say all's well with the fish supply in the capital, and the apparent shortage was due to the shifting of the wholesale market from the jama masjid area to ghazipur in east delhi. ''all is well now. you can get every variety of fish in the market. the shortage is only a relocation problem,'' said neelkanta das of fish corner in cr park. this process should take no more than a week. das said the preparations for shifting to the new location had been on for the past week. the new wholesale market was to be operational from october 1, which is why a slight shortage was felt in the market, he said. ''supplies apart, a new market has forced us to jack up prices,'' said biren barmar, a salesperson at sarkar fish shop. the reason, he said, was additional transportation cost. ''earlier, we paid rs 15 to get to the wholesale market. now we have to spend rs 45,'' he said. add to this a tax of rs 2 per rs 100 worth of fish at the new wholesale market and you have prices going up from rs 20 to rs 40 per kg. the rohu and katla, which were sold for rs 80-rs 100, are now priced between rs 100 and rs 120. hilsa comes for rs 120-rs 140, and pabda for rs 100. while some people agreed that the prices would eventually come down and did not mind dishing out some extra money for a good fish, some buyers had switched to buying smaller fish, said das. he was, however, all praise for the new wholesale market. ''it is very well organised. the government has made an effort to give a clean place,'' he said. at ina, fish dealers are recovering from the setback suffered from the licence problem. ''but that is behind us. we got fresh licences nearly a month back and the business is back,'' said s k yadav of s fish corner. the shop boasted of a wide and fresh variety, including salmon, rohu, red snapper, calcutta bekti, black pomfret and white pomfret.