Owners of over 3,600 trawling boats and other deep sea vessels keep their fingers crossed as the monsoon ban on trawling comes to an end on the midnight of July 31.
The last 52 days have been an unusually lean season for traditional fishermen and the future looks dim, said Joseph Xavier Kalapurackal, president of the Kerala Fishing Boat Operators’ Association, on Tuesday. The traditional fishermen, who are allowed to fish during the trawl ban period, ended up with little catch and in utter despondency. The situation could be a sign for the future, he said.
The deep sea boat owners have blamed fishing vessels from other countries harvesting deep sea Indian resources and called on the State and Union government to “facilitate” the Indian boats to engage in deep sea fishing.
Protest against fees hike
Mr. Kalapurackal pointed to the recent hike in licence fee as one of the examples of hurdles placed on Indian fishing boats in engaging in deep sea fishing. He said that the fee had been raised to ₹55,000. If the boats do not pay up the revised fee, they can be seized, he said.
Charles George of Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedi, an independent union of fishermen, said that the fishers planned to lay siege to the Goshree bridge on August 1 in protest against the licence fee hike.
He said the fee for traditional fishermen had been raised from ₹5,000 to ₹52,000.
Besides, the traditional boat owners have decided to stop paying 4 to 5% of the auction proceeds to the fisheries apex cooperative Matsyafed in protest against the licence fee hike. Benny, a trawl boat worker from Nayaramablam, said the season ahead looked bleak for the big boats.
He was busy at the Kalamukku fish landing centre on Tuesday mending nets as fishers prepared for the fishing expedition beginning on the midnight of Wednesday.
He said the last fishing season had ended up with puffer fish destroying fishing nets worth around ₹1.5 lakh.
New nets have been bought and those that could be repaired were mended, he said.
Pointing to the colour differences in the twines being used to mend the nets, Sajin, a fisherman from Kalamukku, said they expected the fishing nets to be better protected.
Meanwhile, the Fisheries Department has launched a data collection drive to determine the exact number of vessels going out to sea after the trawling ban.
