Mohammad Didar Hossain perches on a brick in the corner of Sadarghat’s crowded fish landing ghat, catching a brief moment of respite. For hours, he has been unloading tons of marine fish from boats and carrying them to cold storage units – a task repeated day after day under the unrelenting sun and occasional rain.
Didar is one of nearly 2,000 workers who toil at the ghat every day. Their labour is essential to Bangladesh’s seafood supply chain, yet few enjoy even the most basic working conditions.
The ghat lacks designated rest areas, proper dining facilities, safe drinking water, and sanitation. Workers often sit or lie wherever they find space – on sacks, under makeshift sheds, or directly under the open sky.
Pay is minimal and tied closely to output. Labourers earn between 600 and 1,000 taka per day depending on workload, or 100 taka per boat unloaded. Each vessel arriving at Sadarghat carries 10 to 12 tonnes of fish, divided into blocks weighing 10 to 20 kilograms.
To unload a single boat, a worker handles 60 to 70 blocks. During low tide, they wade deeper into the river to drag fish ashore, making the work even more physically demanding.
Among the workforce, roughly a hundred women, like Faria Akhter, also perform this exhausting work. Faria, who has been at the ghat for three months, earns between 600 and 700 taka a day.
She describes the lack of amenities – no rest areas, drinking water, or proper sanitation – as a daily challenge, compounded by the physical strain of carrying heavy loads alongside male colleagues.
Despite the scale of the operation, infrastructure remains rudimentary. Workers rely on makeshift arrangements rather than pontoons or modern unloading systems, which would ease their burden significantly.
Around 150 boats unload fish daily, with some vessels unloading three to four times. Different “fish parties” organise the work, and the majority of the country’s catch is offloaded at Sadarghat, although private jetties along the Karnaphuli River are also used.
The ghat forms part of a broader industry that includes 268 registered fishing vessels, 232 of which operate in the Bay of Bengal, alongside some 67,000 registered and unregistered boats harvesting deep-sea fish. The sector is central to Bangladesh’s economy, yet the welfare of the labourers remains largely overlooked.
Efforts to modernise the industry under the government’s Sustainable Coastal and Marine Fisheries Project envisaged four new fish landing centres and three marine surveillance check posts in Chattogram.
However, none of these centres have been constructed to date. Officials from fish traders’ associations stress the need for a government-led initiative to convert Sadarghat into a full-fledged, properly equipped fish landing station.
Deputy Director Shoukot Kabir Chowdhury of the Marine Fisheries Office acknowledged that while the department supervises conditions for sailors on fishing vessels, it has no jurisdiction over the welfare of unloading labourers. He noted, however, that the issue requires attention.
For the thousands who make their living at Sadarghat, the work is both physically taxing and precarious. Yet, despite these challenges, the ghat remains the backbone of Chattogram’s seafood trade, a bustling hub of activity sustained by the determination and endurance of its labourers.
Without improvements in infrastructure, pay, and basic amenities, these workers continue to toil in the shadows, their contributions largely invisible to the wider public.
