KOLKATA, Oct 8 (TIWN): After a seven-year hiatus, the hilsa catch from Bangladesh’s Padma will entice city gastronomes this Durga Puja. The Sk Hasina government has lifted the ban it had imposed on export of the Padma hilsa to India in 2012.

Trucks carrying Bangladesh hilsa will begin crossing over to India via the Petropole border from Mahalaya. The curb will again be imposed from October 11, three days after Dashami. Altogether, 500 tonnes of the fish will land here between September 28 and October 10. The hilsa catch in Bengal has steadily dipped over the years. For quite some time now, demand has far outstripped local supply.

Hilsa imported from Bangladesh played a key role in meeting the demand and also in keeping a check on runaway market prices. This worked till September 5, 2011, when Banerjee refused to accompany then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka and nixed the proposed Teesta water-sharing deal.

The next year, Bangladesh banned export of hilsa to India though the official reason behind the curb was low availability of the fish that makes up nearly 11% of the fish production in Bangladesh.