Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jun 5: The fishermen suffered from fish famine, cyclone, rain etc during the fishing season just gone by. This season proved to be a disaster financially for all the fishermen.

There will be a fishing holiday from June 1 to July 31 for deep sea fishing. The entire west coast will stay without deep sea fishing activity for two months.

The fishing community had to go through cyclone and lockdown issues last year too. On most of the days, the fishermen preferred to stay home instead of venturing into the sea for fishing, taking into account financial implications.

The fishing community has been facing one or the other challenge for the last two years. Out of the fish catches, 25 percent goes to fishermen in trawl boats. It is 35 percent of purse seine boats, But because of diesel price hike in recent years, profit has drastically fallen, says former president of Purse Seine Boat Owners Association, Mohan Bengre.

Under the current circumstances, one has to spend not less than one lac rupees for diesel alone for each of the deep sea fishing trips. As the government did not release subsidies on diesel from December, many of the boats did not undertake fishing. Because of the lockdown, fish could not be exported, he stated.

Bengre also lamented the fact that fishermen from Kerala and Tamil Nadu use scientific methods like light fishing for catching the fish. He expressed disappointment at not announcing any package to the fishermen by the government.

Chairman of Karnataka State Fisheries Development Corporation, Nitin Kumar, says that the software problem had disabled subsidy release. He said that a diesel subsidy of Rs 12 crore has been released for December and January.