Khadalgobra is a village adjacent to old Digha township inhabited by about 500 fisher people who fished in near shore waters with Sareng Jal (Surrounding Net) also known in Bengali as Ber Jal. These nets are 2 -3 kilometers long. The net is cast at high tide. Carried to the shore one of its ends is pegged. Rest of the net is taken on a boat to be cast in a wide semicircle in the sea and then the boat returnsreturns to the shore in the end. In the process the crew on the boat go on releasing the net. Thus the net is spread in a semi circle with one end pegged and the other end taken to a point near to the pegged end. Once this process is complete the fishers collectively haul up the net by pulling at both ends. 40-45 fishers are employed in the operation which takes about three hours. These small and traditional fishers used to operate from Digha Mohana (confluence of river Champa with Bay of Bengal) to the Odisha border at Udaypur. 20-30 years ago the fishers could catch 1,500 kg to 2,000 kg of fish a day. The catch included, besides small fishes like Parsey, Taura, Babla, Amodi, Patia, Shrimp etc. even species like Hilsa, Baul and Tiger Prawn. The fishing required a host of pre and post harvest activities. Drying and mending of nets, mooring and repairing of boats, temporary huts to shelter the fishers, fish sorting and drying, visit of scores of fish vendors to collect both wet and dry fish. The beach teemed with livelihood activities of thousands of fish workers both men and women. Those days are no more. The catch has reduced to 40 kg to 80 kg a day and almost all of it are very small fishes. In the last 30-40 years the more tourism has increased in Digha, the more the fishers have lost their fishing ground. The beach, essential for hauling the net, narrowed and even disappeared from a long stretch due to erosion induced by constructions and embankments. Residues of it has been claimed by tourist activities. And the fishers have been pushed out. Erosion has also increased the beach gradient and the authorities have dumped the beach with boulders to resist erosion. Thus, increasingly, large stretches of Digha sea front has been rendered unusable by the fishers. Also, in blatant violation of environmental norms, all waste water from the hotels and resorts, is directly discharged into the sea without any treatment. The polluted water, all along the Digha coast, drives away fishes and the beach based fishers loose their catch. Loosing livelihood in fishing the fishers were compelled to either work as hotel boys or as menial workers in construction. A few of them have been trying small trades on the beach as ice-cream sellers, snacks and tea sellers etc. Ouster from traditional and independent livelihood has cast a gloom of despair on them. No elected representative from Gram Panchayet, Block Panchayet or District Council to local MLA or MP has raised the issue of these poor fishers.Government Officials flaunted the plea of Government Order. Local leaders sometimes even took money from these poor fishers to protect them and did nothing. Obviously making quick money from tourism and related constructions was incomparably more attractive than efforts to save the traditional livelihood of some poor fishers. Road to resistance: These poor and ousted fishers has finally realised that if they want to survive, they have to resist. On August 14, 2017 about 80 fishers under the leadership of senior fisher Ananta Bhuina sat with the leaders of Coastal Fish Vendors’ Union of DMF. They decided to form an organisation of the fishers and named it Digha Small and Traditional Fisher Association. They drew up their main demands and decided to put up those demands to the authorities at Block, Sub-Division and District levels. An 11 member adhoc committee was also formed to take their demands forward. On August 30, 2017 DMF leaders Pradip Chatterjee, Soumen Ray, Milan Das, Debasis Shyamal, Sujoy Jana and Achintya Pramanik visited the fishers’ village of Khadalgobra and inspected the fishers’ houses. A meeting was held in the village with about 250 villagers. Demands raised were – * Immediate recognition of the dignity of fishers’ occupation through issuance of Identity Card to all fishers by the Government; * Immediate rehabilitation of the fishers and restoration of their right to fish: * Extension of comprehensive social security to the fishing community. Tourism at Digha on sea develops by killing the children of the sea – Small and Traditional Fishers. DMF urges upon all concerned to expose the dark side of tourism and stand by the poor ousted fishing communities.