MADURAI
A public interest litigation was filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court seeking lifting of ban on use of modified purse seine gear for fishing.
The petitioner, P.C. Amudhan of Dhanushkodi Traditional Fishermen’s Welfare Association, said the State had prohibited fishing by pair trawling or fishing with purse seine nets by vessels or mechanised boats in coastal areas as a measure to conserve fishery.
The petitioner said in the 1980s fishing by big mechanised trawlers by pair trawling was allowed. However, with the catch dwindling, fishermen changed to purse seine fishing. Originally, purse seine nets came with mesh size of 12 mm to 25 mm and could be spread over A 3-km radius. They could go down to a depth of 600 metres to 800 metres. These nets could pull out large quantities of fish resulting in the dwindling of their population.
Purse seine was considered an efficient gear and it was adapted to local needs to remove its negative attributes. It was capital intensive and a single fishermen could not afford it. Hence people would buy it in collectives and the mesh size was modified so that only adult fish would be caught. The length and depth were also reduced so as not to impact the population.
The blanket ban on purse seine fishing caused hardship to the fishing community.
The petitioner said in a similar petition, the High Court had directed the Directorate of Fisheries to consider the submission of a technical committee to review the duration of the ban period. But no action was taken and the ban had impacted the livelihood of fishermen.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and R. Tharani directed notice to Fisheries department.
