Didar Uddin Ahmed is a fishmonger. He is also the president of Kalapara Municipal City Businessmen’s Cooperative Society of Patuakhali. He spoke to Prothom Alo Patuakhali correspondent Shankar Das and Kalapara correspondent Nesaruddin Ahmed about the impact of the Padma Bridge on local trade and commerce.
Didar Uddin Ahmed: Of course there is an impact. The biggest advantage is that we are saving time. Earlier, traders had to go to Dhaka and stay for two or three days for shopping. Now you don’t have to go to Dhaka. Traders can now go directly to Dhaka and buy goods and return within a day. This will save time and money. For this reason, local buyers can now buy any product at a fair price.
Didar Uddin Ahmed: 35-40 thousand metric tons of hilsa fish is extracted from the Bay of Bengal adjacent to Kuakata every year. Apart from this, two lakh metric tons of shrimp, coral, vol, laitya, faha, chapila, parse, taira, rupchanda, ayr and other important species of fish are extracted from the sea and rivers. 12-15 thousand metric tons of native species including Shing-Magur, Pangash, Gulsa, Tengra were extracted. Sending these fish to Dhaka was not the end of our misery. Those bad times are over. I am most happy as a fishmonger with the launch of the Padma Bridge. This is because it used to take 12-13 hours, sometimes 23-24 hours to take hilsa and other fish to our Dhaka market. The quality of the fish could not be maintained as it was suffering. Now fish is going to be marketed in Dhaka at a fast time. Not only in Dhaka, we are now thinking of selling fish in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Natore markets.
The Prime Minister has plans to make it a ‘tourism hub’ with beautiful spots like Kuakata, Taltali and Rangabali. Now that possibility is getting closer.