After years of frustration over most of their demands going largely unnoticed on the corridors of power in New Delhi, the fishermen community is now pinning its hopes on the new government to be formed at the Centre for getting their wish list fulfilled.
Factors
There are two factors that fishworkers hope will work to their benefit — that the Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi hails from a State that has the country’s largest coastline, and hence, they expect him to be more sensitive to the community’s issues and aspirations; and that the BJP in Gujarat had recently nominated a member (Chunibhai Gohil) from the fishermen community to the Upper House.
“We are drawing up a memorandum to be submitted to the new Prime Minister as well as to seek an audience with him in early June,” chairperson of the National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) M. Ilango said.
Main grouse
The NFF’s main grouse is that the welfare of an estimated 3 crore marine-inland fishers across the States and Union Territories has not been a core concern in the last 65 years, irrespective of which party was in power at the Centre.
For the past year or so, the NFF has been rallying to get major political parties include the fishworkers’ charter of demands in their election manifestoes.
“As a result of our lobbying, many major parties did include parts of the charter in their manifestoes, while others referred to these demands during poll campaigns,” Mr. Ilango said.
Establishment of union
Right at the top of the NFF’s wish list was the establishment of a separate Union fisheries ministry to oversee the implementation of welfare programmes. At present, fisheries allocation was virtually dismissed as a footnote in the budgetary plan for the Agriculture Ministry, Mr. Ilango said.
For instance, when the previous budget allocated Rs. 2025 crore for agriculture, only about Rs. 300 crore was earmarked for the
Fisheries Department and hardly Rs. 8 crore for true welfare of the community, he pointed out.
The other demands that will be highlighted in the memorandum to the Prime Minister include the recognition of the fishermen community in the Scheduled Tribe — a recommendation that has been in cold storage since the report of the Mandal Commission — and representation for the community in the Union Cabinet.
