Some unscrupulous people might continue to pollute water bodies by dumping garbage, discharging industrial effluents and sewage. However, Pranahita, a tributary of Godavari river, is silently patronizing around 1000 families living on some bordering villages of Maharashtra by providing livelihood for 50 years.
Come October, fishermen hailing from Mulchera, Yella, Nagulwavi, Machigatta, Marpalli, Oddigudem, Bori, Aheri, Devalamarri, Chinna Watra, Pedda Watra, Venkatapur, Sinchugondi, Regunta, Moyaddinpet, Tekda, Nemda, Bamni Sironcha, etc, villages in Aheri Vidhana Sabha or Assembly constituency in Gadchiroli district of the neighboring state move to selected spots on over 100 kilometers long riverbed of Pranahita to find a livelihood for eight months.
The fishermen along with their family members camp in the riverbed by erecting wooden huts and make-shift tents, facing unfavorable climatic conditions like chilly weather, unseasonal rains and sweltering heat wave conditions. They occupy the riverbed near villages during Dasara festival and leave it following the onset of the monsoon that usually occurs in the first week of June.
While men cast nets woven by themselves to catch fish mostly at night, women do household chores including taking care of their children and cutting leftover fish at day. They travel by boats risking their lives. The fishermen would sell the fish to traders from Bejjur, Koutala, Chintalamanepalli mandals in Telangana and Aheri of Maharashtra. They buy groceries in Talayi, Somini, Ravulamarri and other villages situated on the banks of the river in Telangana. .
“Our families have been depending on catching fish at different locations of the river for 50 years. The river is a source of livelihood for us. Despite inhospitable climatic conditions, we rely on the age-old yet traditional occupation,” Thokala Shankar, a fisherman from Devalamarri village in Aheri Taluk told ‘Telangana Today,”
The fishermen said that they were able to earn somewhere between Rs 500 and 1,000 per day by fishing in the river. They claimed that the fish evoke huge demand considering the quality when compared to those raised in irrigation projects and tanks. They reasoned that the fish in a flowing water body were tastier than the fish grown in projects and tanks.
The fishermen say they are left with no option but to earn their livelihood by fishing as they do not own agricultural lands. They say that rise of the cost of thread used to weave the nets is a burden on them and point out that they do not receive any welfare programmes launched by the government.