Raising grave concern over bull trawling and LED fishing, Fisheries Minister Vinod Palyekar on Wednesday said that the Goa, Daman and Diu Marine Fishing Regulation Act, 1980 would be soon amended in order to strengthen the law for implementing the ban on bull trawling and LED fishing in the state. It was a general consensus that regulatory amendment should be enacted in the Marine Fishing Regulation Act, 1980 which could help to conserve the resources by bringing a ban on bull trawling and LED fishing. We will soon amend the act so that the concerned law will enable us to take required steps in this regard, said Palyekar while addressing the media persons at the state Secretariat. Section (6) of the Goa, Daman and Diu Marine Fishing Regulation Act, 1980 enables the state government to amend the law in order to bring in required restriction over fishing. Palyekar also raised concern about the cross-state fishing in territorial waters of Goa. He said that ban on LED fishing and bull trawling will be strictly implemented within the 12 nautical miles by Goa government and beyond 12 nautical miles which comes under the purview of the central government will be implemented after deliberate discussion with the Union Fisheries Minister. He further said that he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding uniform policy and law to ban LED fishing and bull trawling. Palyekar informed that Kerala has said that it is ready to have a complete ban on bull trawling and LED fishing, however, Karnataka and Maharashtra are yet to take a stand on the issue. Earlier, Palyekar, while speaking at the inaugural function for a workshop on LED light fishing outside the territorial waters of the coastal states, said that bull trawling LED fishing should be totally banned and the fishing ban should be extended for three months. Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai said that the world is witnessing 1.5 per cent decline in annual fish catch, and due to LED fishing and bull trawling fish famine is fast approaching which will result in malnutrition. In 1996, the world fish catch was around 136 million tonnes and it is coming down annually by 1.5 per cent that is in 2010 it was 109 million tonnes, so there is a 16 per cent decrease in 14 years and it is expected that by 2048, there will be no fish in the ocean. The government of India cannot just be talking, what we see is that fish famine is approaching, said Sardesai. The by-catch is considered to be around 40 per cent of a catch that means the 40 per cent of the catch in LED fishing and bull trawling is wasted and thrown back into the sea it means you are killing the golden goose, he added. Sardesai said that the government has taken cognizance of the fishermen from outside Goa entering into the terrestrial waters of the coastal sector to carry out fishing activities thus affecting the livelihood of traditional fishermen of Goa. We as Goans are getting a raw deal as neighbouring state like Karnataka are not co-operating they don’t have any system in place. The government of India ought to restrain the neighbouring states to have the same amount of discipline which we are implementing in Goa, he said. The workshop was attended by the secretary for Fisheries Govind Jaiswal, P Paul Pandiyan, joint secretary (Fisheries) government of India and Fisheries Development Commissioner; head of department of Molluscan Fisheries division Dr Sunil Mohammad along with other stakeholders.