Beginning this monsoon, the entire west coast of the country will have a uniform fishing holiday season for 61 days, from June 1 to July 31, primarily aimed at allowing the breeding of fish during the monsoon.
States on the west coast — Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat — had different periods of holidays on different dates. While Kerala had about 47 days, parts of Karnataka had 57 and 47, and Goa about 50. This practice, besides affecting breeding of fish, used to give room to altercations between fishermen from neighbouring States at times.
Vasudev Boloor, vice-president of National Fish Workers Forum, told The Hindu that the forum had been demanding uniform fishing holidays across the west coast for two reasons. The first was to allow unhindered breeding of the fish. The second was to avoid clashes between fishermen of different States.
When fishermen in Karnataka used to observe holidays, fishermen in neighbouring Kerala and Goa would not, as a result those fishermen would venture in to the sea in Karnataka region, resulting in disputes. Many times, Karnataka fishermen had to helplessly watch them taking away the catch, Mr. Vasudev said. The east coast has fishing holiday for 45 days in April-May, he added.
In fact, the forum was in favour of a 90-day fishing holiday, starting from June 1 to August 31, which was in vogue sometime ago. The sea would be warm during the monsoon as fresh waters enter it, thus attracting large hoards of fish to engage in breeding activities, he said. If the Union government proposed such a move, the forum would support it, he said.
Meanwhile, Director of Fisheries Veerappa Gowda said that the 61-day uniform holiday came in after much discussion and persuasion of some unwilling States. Kerala was initially unwilling to the length of the holiday.
It might not be possible to have a 90-day holiday, Mr. Gowda said.
All fishing trawlers and retrofitted conventional boats with engines more than 10 HP capacity will not be allowed to do fishing
Those violating the ban will be subjected to penalty, including stopping subsidised diesel supply for a year
Earlier, there were different holiday periods and dates in different States
