Fishing ban defied once again
Sandesh Prabhudesai
27 July 2002
Defying the ban on fishing till 15
August, hundreds of Goan trawlers have sailed through
the Arabian sea, bringing rich catches of solar shrimp
to the tune of around 300 tonnes per day.
The defiant trawler owners have even
transported the prawns to the processing factories in
Karnataka and Kerala, for its further export to countries
in Europe as well as Japan and other far east countries.
While the Coast Guard has seized only
around 20 trawlers in the last two days, the local fisheries
department has done very little in prohibiting the mechanised
boats from fishing.
During daylight, the trawlers are seen
anchored at fishing jetties and transferring the catch
to the lined up trucks. Fisheries director S C Verenkar
however claims that his officials have kept strict vigil
over any kind of violation of ban.
This is the third consecutive year
the trawlers have been defying the fishing ban and catching
the solar shrimp, which travels from the South to the
North during monsoons. The one-day catch of around 300
tonnes will roughly bring them income of around Rs 15
million.
Due to the immense pressure of the
trawler owners' lobby, some of who were even the ministers
and legislators in the state, the government at one
time had brought down the fishing ban period to 24 July,
allowing rampant fishing.
There are hardly one or two trawler
owners left in the Goa Assembly now, with none of them
being in the ruling party.
The high court order however now has
compelled the state to extend the ban till 15 August,
since the environmentalists have convincingly argued
that fishing from June to August hampers the breeding
and spawning period for various species of the fish.
As each coastal state has been following
a different deadline for the fishing ban, there was
a proposal that centre imposes uniform fishing ban so
that fishing vessels from neighbouring states do not
come and take away the catch while trawler owners from
that state do not simply lose revenue.
In spite of several resolutions being
passed in this regard and even three coastal states
of Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka agreeing to the proposal,
the legislation of uniform fishing ban
is still awaited. The violation of ban however has become
the order of the day, at the cost of fish reproduction
getting reduced drastically every year.
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