Organisations of fishermen, including those of deep-sea artisanal fisherfolk in several coastal States, are protesting against the recommendations of an expert committee that reviewed India’s marine fishing policy and the existing guidelines for deep-sea fishing in the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The seven-member committee headed by Dr B. Meenakumari, Deputy Director General (Fisheries), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), was appointed soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an appeal for a Blue Revolution at his Foundation Day address at the Council in July.
The committee’s report, which was submitted in August, is yet to be approved by the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture. However, fishermen’s organisations are planning a countrywide agitation against the recommendations, which they claim are part of a conspiracy to sell India’s fisheries resources to big foreign and domestic companies, and are formulated without taking into account the views of the stakeholders in the marine fishing sector.
The committee has, however, said that production in India from the near-shore waters has plateaued and that there is very little scope for increasing production in waters up to a depth of 200 metres. But waters beyond a depth of 500 m are not optimally exploited, and there is considerable scope of expansion in this zone, mainly for tuna and tuna-like species, which are in demand in the international market.
One of the most controversial recommendations is the creation of a buffer zone between the near-shore and offshore regions (waters between 200 m and 500 m in depth) along the coast and to regulate fishing there in order to augment resources in the near-shore areas as well as the deep-sea regions in the EEZ.
Another is to throw open off-shore regions for fishing by foreign and joint venture companies (a suggestion that was rejected by an expert committee in 1996) until the domestic fishers acquired the capability and techniques for effective deep-sea fishing.
A third contentious proposal is to allow tuna fishing by deep-sea vessels even during the period of uniform ban on fishing implemented by the Government of India every year as this ban period does not coincide with the spawning seasons of tuna species such as yellow fin and big eye tuna, which are high-value products in the international market.
2014, Frontline