Every year fishing in the lake is banned for three months from May to allow natural breeding during the monsoon. The ban ends on July 31.

This year the ban has been extended by one month due to poor rainfall in the area.

This has been done following a proposal by the Bangladesh Fisheries Development Corporation (BFDC), which leases the lake to fishermen.

BFDC sources said if the drought-like situation continues for a week or two, natural breeding of fishes and their production will be greatly hampered.

"We extended the ban due to less rainfall this year ", said BFDC official Md. Shoeb Ahmad.

Each year, the BFDC earns about Tk.2.5 crore from 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes of fishes sold from the lake.

Like in previous years, BFDC had a plan to release 32 tonnes of fish fries in the lake this year. It started releasing fries in the first week of June.

"But, we stopped after releasing only seven tonnes on June 8 due to the drought-like situation", Shoeb told this correspondent."

The prospect of releasing fries any more is bleak as the monsoon is nearing an end, he said.

The lake is usually filled up with water from the Lushai hills in neighboring India. But this year the flow from the hills is lesser, he said.

"We are afraid that the natural breeding of fishes in the lake will be greatly affected this year due to less water in the lake", said Senior Scientific Officer Md. Alamgir of River Research Institute.

He said that there were two natural sanctuaries for fishes-- one in Longdu and another near the BFDC office. But these can not be called sanctuaries now due to deposit of silt for years, he said.