State fishing industry urges govt to relax lay off period

The fishing industry in the state has urged the central and state governments to relax the lay off period during this season.

Five years back, the central government had imposed a uniform fishing ban in the entire East Coast including Andaman & Nicobar for conservation and effective management of fishing resources. Since then, the fishing industry in the state has been observing a fishing holiday from April 15 to May 31 every year.

But this year, the industry has asked the government to lift the ban due to last year's tsunami which severely impacted the business.

"Due to tsunami, there has been no fishing at all during the last three months.Microorganisms and other flora and fauna have been entirely destroyed. Therefore, we have requested that this year there should be no ban on fishing in the East Coast including Andaman & Nicobar," S K Aggarwal, president of Association of Indian Fishery Industries, told Business Standard.

Aggarwal further said that the current ban period from April 15 to May 31 was based on the convenience of floating staff to visit their homes in Kerala and Tamil Nadu from Visakhapatnam, which coincides with the summer vacations of the schools.

There seems to be no real scientific reason except giving a normal conservation time. So, in the interest of trawler operators no ban be should imposed this year on East Coast, he said.

Even the mechanised boat operators in the state have opposed the ban on fishing this year. There are about 2,600 mechanised boats operating in the state from Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Machilipatnam and other fishing harbours.

"Tsunami severely affected our business and if we observe the 45-day ban on fishing, we will incur heavy loses," P C Appa Rao, president of A P Mechanised fishing Boat Operators' Association, said.