Kerala - Kochi   

‘Aquarium reforms will not harm boat owners’

KOCHI: The mechanised fishing boat owners’ opposition to the Aquarium Reforms Bill, which is expected to be piloted in the Assembly at its next session, will ruin the current unity in the marine fishing sector, the Kerala Matsayathozhilali Aikyavedi has warned.

It said that the opposition was based on wrong premises and that the boat owners’ recent agitation against the Bill was untimely. At a time when a united stand by all segments of the fishing sector was essential to tide over the current crisis in the sector, the boat owners’ opposition would cause a split in the ranks, Charles George, president of the Aikyavedi, said.

He said fish workers in the rest of the country were eagerly waiting for the Bill. A key provision in the Bill is the reservation of the 22-km-wide territorial waters of Kerala for the exclusive use of traditional fish workers and confining the mechanised boating sector to the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that lie beyond the territorial waters. The boat owners are up in arms against this as, they contend, it would restrict their operational freedom and lead to constant conflicts between the mechanised sector and the traditional one.

Mr. George said these arguments were wrong and noted that in many countries, including Norway and the U.K., territorial waters were the preserve of the traditional sector and that such an arrangement would not harm the boaters’ rights.

Mr. George, who is also a member of the Aquarium Reforms Committee, said the Bill, apart from reserving fishing in territorial waters and the inland waters, proposed several revolutionary steps. The committee had proposed to extend the limits of territorial waters to 44 km., promote commercial fishing in the EEZ to optimise the catch, ban foreign fishing vessels in the outer sea, discourage building of new fishing vessels, get all vessels to register with the government, and take steps for checking marine pollution.

He urged the government to speed up the process of enacting the Bill.

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