When The Barracudas Come Out

Fishy Tales

Coast Cuts 

• 8,041 kms Indian coastline

• 9 & 4 Coastal states/UTs

• 5,30,000 sq km Continental shelf

• 90 lakh Traditional fishermen

• Rs 26,000-36,000 Average income p.a. per fisherman

• 9,28,215 tonnes Fish production in 2013-2014

• 52,982 boats Traditional fishing

• 73,410 boats Motorised fishing

• 72,749 Mechanised fishing vessels

(Source : Ministry website and industry)

Cost of 10 days on high seas  

• 5,000 litres Rs 2.5 lakh Diesel

• 350 blocks Rs 28,000 Ice blocks

• 5,000 litres Rs 5,000 Water

• Rs 40,000 Rations

• Rs 3.23 lakh Total

(Source: Fishermen’s associations)

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Last July, newly anointed Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the call for a Blue Revolution to maximise the potential from India’s vast coastline. Now in the normal course of events, this should have come as a sou­rce of delight for the nation’s various fishing communities. Instead, it’s had the opposite effect. Chief among their concerns is a report hurriedly prepared by an expert committee, headed by dep­uty director-general of fisheries Dr B. Meenakumari, envisaging a comprehensive review of the national Deep Sea Fishing Policy and Guidelines.

The fishing community feels the reco­m­mendations threaten their live­lih­ood and favour corporate and foreign vessels. They complain of an “evil design” to keep traditional fishermen off the seas. But even after a series of protests across the country and over eight representations submitted to the agriculture ministry and the PMO, there has been no response from the government. “They have not even called us once to hear our grievances; neither have they junked the report. To rub it in, they have now asked poor fishermen who travel beyond 12 nautical miles to become passport holders,” says Joseph Xavier of the All Kerala Fishing Boat Operator’s Association, “We have to carry passports even when we are in our own territory. But no questions are asked of the foreign vessels who come into our waters,” he says bitterly.

As the orange orb of the sun slowly dissipates the grey of the dawn, fishing boats stack themselves along a private harbour on the Vypeen island off the Ernakulam mainland in Kerala. A thrill runs through the crowd as the first lot of prawns are unloaded and heaped into rows of neat piles ready to be auctioned. A group closes in tightly around the pile as the numbers skip on the tongue of the breathless auctioneer. In minutes, the rows of prawns are all taken, then the piles of sardines, the threadfin breams, mackerel, tuna, squid, deep sea prawns...it’s all gone. The trawlers and fishing vessels quickly offload and leave after the sale. At the far end of the harbour, a decrepit sea-worn hook-and-line fishing boat hardly 46 feet in length, the St Nicholas, patiently waits its turn.

The boat belongs to M. Michael from the Eravi Puthenthurai (EP village) which borders Thootoor in Kanyaku­m­ari district, an area renowned for some of the most daring fishermen in the cou­ntry. There is a sense of awe at the crew of seven who have spent the last 12 days in the waters off Beypore in north Kerala. Slowly, the yellow fin tunas emerge from the boat’s hull—a priced fish in the inter­n­ational market. The big buyers are hol­d­ing their purses for it is whispered that at the bottom of that 14-year-old decrepit boat lie the big, big catch. Finally, when the small fish have been cleared from the auction area, the sailfish, weighing some 20 kg (it can grow up to 100 kg) each, are pulled out one by one with an iron hook. The two men who carry the fish out can hardly contain their wide grins as they make the trip again and again.

Even as the harbour celebrates the catch of the day, the controversy over the Meenakumari report casts a deep sha­dow on the Vypeen. There is a sense of apprehension that the recommendations, if implemented by the government, will close not just this private harbour in Vypeen but thousands more like it across the country. Lakhs of fishermen, including the likes of Mic­hael and his crew, could be deprived of their livelihood.

Interestingly, one of the recommendations is that the country lacks adequate trained manpower and expertise to exploit the Indian waters beyond 500 metres depth (deep seas)...“hence technology transfer through acquisition of foreign fishing vessels and, or, JV/leasing etc may be considered for this area till dom­estic capacity is fully developed”.

In all fairness, the Meenakumari rep­ort does devote one full page to the end­ur­a­nce levels of the fishermen from Thoo­toor village and their exploits in the deep seas but then with the same enthusiasm observes that India’s fishermen need for­eign assistance by way of technology and  tra­ining and recommends the emp­loyment of foreign crew, paying them a minimum wage of US $25,000 per annum on the deep sea fishing vessels. The introduction of an additional fleet of 270 vessels (240 tuna long liners, 15 purse seiners and 15 squid jiggers) to har­vest tuna and like species in the deep seas is another recommendation.

The committee considered the latest resource potential of the Indian exclusive economic zone (EEZ)—estimated at 4.41 million metric tonnes—and based on that has calculated: “At current local mar­ket prices, these tuna resources alone (yellow fin and skipjack) are valued at Rs 1,394 crore or US $232 million. If bigeye, billfish and other fish resources are added, this value goes up to Rs 1,790 crore or about $300 million. It’s also est­imated that if proper post-harvest care is taken, the value of Indian tuna resources can go up to $500 million.” 

With the opposition questioning the Meenakumari report in Parliament on February 24, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh informed the Lok Sabha that foreign boats would not be allowed to fish in the EEZ. Singh went on to assure the LS that before taking a final decision on the panel’s recommendations, the Cen­tre would hold discussions with the CMs of coastal states. But the fishermen’s’ organisations remain sceptical.

T.N. Prathapan, Congress MLA from nearby Kodungallur, told Outlook, “Both Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy and Opposition leader V.S. Achuth­anan­dan met the prime minister and told him about the fears the Meenakumari report has created among the fishing community. Mr Modi did listen but did not commit anything...we are worried that the recommendations will be implemen­ted by stealth through the backdoor.”

Curiously, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (cmfri) has in a strongly worded letter written to Dr Meenakumari against the recommendations and the government notification in November inviting applications for lop (letter of permission) for deep sea fishing. Although the notification pretends to attribute the points to another expert committee’s recommendations (made in 2010) to revalidate the potential yield of marine fishery resources, the notification has actually followed the Meenakumari report. When contacted, Meenakumari says she does not know what the government will do with the report and refuses to clarify or comment further.

Says a government source, “What is worrying is the veil of secrecy that shrouds the working of the fisheries department. They have managed to introduce things even keeping the parliamentarians in the dark.” Prathapan says that he had met Meenakumari “and she had very firmly told me that we may agitate all we like but she was determined to see the report gets implemented”.

There are also fears that these recommendations would only add to the harassment of local fisherfolk. At the harbour, they talk of fines being levied and catches confiscated by the fisheries department officials if there was a life jacket missing or if papers were not fully in order. As if the regulations of a buffer zone were not bad enough, on the heels of the Meenakumari report, in September 2014, the Syda Rao report recommended that the trawling ban period be increased from 47 to 61 days during the spawning period. The report said that this should extend to all boats excepting for the non-motorised country boats. Strangely, the Meenakumari report pleads exemption from this ban for the deep sea fishing Vessels. Habeeb Shaji, manager of the Vypeen harbour, points out that the ban extension will really affect poor fishermen. “The ban is only for the poor fishermen. These recommendations are going to kill the traditional fishing industry,” he says. Indeed, in the last two years there have been three reports and the same set of scientists were on all the committees and, strangely, every report contradicts the other. “These reports don’t recommend anything for the uplift of the fishermen community. They only favour the corporates,” he adds.

The biggest fear is the creation of the buffer zone where the fishermen are not allowed to fish. “The report recommends that a buffer zone be created between 200-500 metres in deep seas. Many of the vessels will not be able to go out to fish because they are only equipped to fish in this area and cannot go further. It is a betrayal of the fishermen and selling off of our marine wealth to the big corporates and foreign powers. This is the prime minister’s ‘Make In India’ policy”—one of the workers at the quay who, understandably, didn’t want to be named, says.

T. Peter, secretary of the National Fish­workers Forum, explains that the EEZ was opened up  to foreign vessels in the 1990s. From 2004, licenses have been given to business concerns too for commercial fishing. “The government has not done anything to train the fishermen community or help financially. These  people have trained themselves, created jobs for themselves and yet they are being punished and their livelihood is being threatened,” he says. NFF chairman M. Ilango is aggrieved at the main stakeholders not being consulted before the Meenakumari report was submitted to the government. “Some commercial bus­iness concerns and a few scientists met and discussed the report. The livelihood of over five crore people (which includes dependants of those in the fishing trade) are at stake here,” he says.

The fishermen allege that foreign vess­els continue to enter Indian waters illegally and fish here. While the coast guard holds that the waters are free for such activity, the Union agriculture minister confirmed in Parliament, “In 2013-14, the coast guard came across 74 cases and till December 44 foreign boats were seized for entering the zone.” Local fisherfolk say that foreign vessels are equipped with fine-mesh nets and can process the fish on the mother vessels. The nets sweep the bottom of the oceans, taking everything from baby fish to the big ones.

Says Joseph Xavier, “The seminars I have attended tell me that there are some 20,000 fishing vessels sitting idle on foreign shores for there is a trend of decreasing fish landings in the European and American shores. While in our case, because of our conservative methods, to some extent we still see an increase in fish landings.” But for how long?

By Minu Ittyipe in Kochi