Bihar govt to continue ban on fish from Andhra amid formalin threat

The Bihar government on Wednesday decided to continue its ban on the sale, storage and transportation of fish from Andhra Pradesh in Patna following lab tests that confirmed the presence of high content of toxic chemical formalin. A team of officials will visit Andhra Pradesh to examine the fish, an official said. Sanjay Sinha, Principal Secretary of state Health Department, said a meeting called by the chief secretary on Wednesday decided that the ban will continue on fish from Andhra Pradesh.

"It was also decided that a team of state government officials will visit Andhra Pradesh in a day or two to examine ponds as well as wholesale markets there," Sinha said. Last week the state government had lifted the ban on the sale of live fish, three days after it banned the sale, transportation and storage of all kinds of fish.

After Bihar banned the fish from Andhra Pradesh in Patna, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu urged his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar to take steps to restore the fish trade in the larger interest of farmers and those engaged in the trade.

In a letter to Nitish Kumar, Naidu said the fish farmer associations of his state represented to his government that their fish trade with Bihar was badly affected due to apprehensions about the alleged use of formalin in the fish supplies. Naidu requested the Bihar government to depute a technical team to undertake quality checks to clear these apprehensions.