Sangharsh Vahini organized the first fishery round-table conference of fishermen from across the region at Dhanwate National College, Congress Nagar on Sunday to discuss the new resolution passed by the government, which it considers as anti-fishermen. According to the committee, as many as 20,000 out of 25,000 ponds in the state are in Vidarbha. But the government allotted only Rs47 lakh to inland ponds compared to Rs97.94 crore allotted to sea fishery. Speaking to TOI, the fishermen said that the government has asked them to increase production but it hardly doing anything to help them. “Traditional method of fishing is not sufficient to boost production. According to the new resolution, the government wants us to produce 1,500kg fish per hectare. It is not possible and soon the will be handed over to private owners,” they said. Dinanath Waghmare, one of the members of the committee, said that the rate of the contract for the pond is six times of the earlier rates. “The government is focusing on sea fishery and it has always ignored us. How can they expect us to raise the production? Traditional fishermen are not even provided proper training by the government,” he added. The budget allotted for training at places like Mumbai and thane which are close to the sea is as much as Rs2 crore. But hardly any money is allotted for training of fishermen in Vidarbha region.” Our fishermen do not have other options to earn livelihood but still the government wants to privatize the ponds, the committee said and added that according to the government data there are 43 fishery seed centres but in reality there are only 24 and hence the production is limited.