Is the Government Trying to Eliminate Fishermen of Goa or What?
Margao-Goa: Goenchea Raponkarancho Ekvott General Secretary and National fishworkers Forum (NFF) Vice Chairperson, Olencio Simoes stated that the Ministry of fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Department of Fisheries order dated 25th May 2020 reducing the monsoon ban from 61 days to 47 days is a sinister plan to eliminate the fishermen of Goa and make Goa like Norway, Denmark, Oman, New Zealand, Australia etc where fishing was banned for several years due to over exploitation. The assistant commissioner Dr.Sanjay Pandey’s act is unjust ,unethical and criminal in nature.It looks like he and his department have planned to displace 80,000 fishermen of Goa, Dr. Pandey has no idea whatsoever about the current situation of the wild fisheries in Goa.
The order states that the Ministry of Home affairs order dated 24th March 2020 to 10th April had banned fishing in EEZ and due to this the government plans to compensate the fishing restriction due to covid-19 and therefore reduce the fishing ban to 47 days and compensate the loss incurred to fishing boats owners, but sadly the fishing ban will not benefit the traditional fishermen nor fishing boat owners as their canoes and boats are small in size and cannot sail due to the stormy weather. But this ban will only benefit deep sea trawlers like pursiners and LED light owners in Goa.
The irony of the situation is that the pursiners and led light owners are the ones who did not abide by the Ministry of Home affairs order nor the fisheries department order of 17 days ban of fishing in EEZ nor in territorial waters of Goa so the question of loss doesn’t arise to them at all.
Agnelo Rodrigues President of GRE stated that The objective of the fishing monsoon ban aims at conserving fish species during monsoon which is the spawning season for many varieties of fish, including shrimp,Monsoon is the breeding season of nearly 300 species but all this will be altered or destroyed. Instead of increasing the fishing ban the central govt. has reduced the ban even after knowing that there is a severe drop in catch of wild fisheries in Goa and India. Therefore we demand that the State government and the fisheries department works in the interest of the fishermen of Goa and not to reduce the monsoon ban to 47 days failing which we will be forced to take to streets.
Submitted by : Agnelo Rodrigues (President) and Olencio Simoes- (General Secretary of GRE, AGFU & Vice Chairperson of National Fishworkers’ Forum.
