FISHING IN TROUBLED WATERS

From Aditya Malaviya in Bhopal/Ganjam/Puri

We watched as the fishermen went out to catch paltry fish in their rickety wooden boats and sell them on the beach.

50-year old B. Kulamani came and sat down with us in front of his modest, one room house. As the Gram Adhyaksh (village President) of village Prayagi in Ganjam district of Orissa, he confesses it has never been easy wearing the crown. “Not only is our livelihood disappearing, but as noliya's , we also face considerable hardship”.

Having lived in the village all his life, he says he is witness to declining productivity of Chilika Lake and its toll on his village. “There was a time when we did not have to worry about food. There was plenty of fish and rice, enough to eat, enough to sell and get by. But today, my family of 4 sons (two of whom are married), 5 grandchildren and us are forced to cut corners on food”. The anguish is writ large on his face: fish is the staple diet of these traditional marine fishermen, and no meal is complete without it.

“My income for the whole year is less than Rs.15, 000; what can we eat with an income like this?” he asks shyly. “This hardly meets the cost of food, let alone expenses on social occasions, health or education of his grandchildren”. Most fishermen here are forced to fish in the sea since fishing is banned in this part of Chilika.

“With the ban, we are forced either forced to fish in the sea or idle gazing at the horizon. With no money, my son had to migrate to Gujarat to work in an iron factory. We try and make ends meet by collecting kaju (cashew), harvesting crops and other manual labor”.

Table 1: Statistics about Coastal Districts

Sl. No.	District Item	Puri	Ganjam
1	Total No. of Blocks	11	22
2	Coastal Blocks	4	4
3	Total No. of GPs	204	444
4	Coastal GPs	16	13
5	No. of Villages	1714	3171
6	No. of Marine Fisher Villages (Govt. Record)	75	28
7	Actual No. of Marine Fisher Villages	28	25

Source: People's Report on Status of Fisher People in Orissa – 2005 .Published by OTFWU & Samudram.

While understandably reluctant to speak about their customary food habits, Kulamani nevertheless candidly reveal astonishing details of the stress the family is under for food. “We need to have fish everyday, but now because of declining catch in the Lake, we supplement fish with potato curry or dal once or twice a week. We also buy ½ kg potato, though we buy less - 250 gram - when some of us are away. Because it is so expensive, each of us has about 250/300- gm. dal only once or twice a week. Usually, in a day, as a whole family, we consume a maximum of 1kg fish accompanied by rice, of which we consume 4-kg. As for vegetables, we have to manage with whatever is locally available: ladyfingers, brinjal, potatoes. Again, depending on how much money we have, we try and have vegetables twice a week”. Kulamani's wife admits that for her, the worse days are from May-July, “when there's no fishing, no money, and little food”. During these days, the family tries to catch some fish by 3-km further into Chilika, but because the lake is shallow and muddy, they have a difficult time wading through the mud to catch what little fish they can.

And the government PDS shop in the village is not for everyone, though Kulamani is luckier than some of his felloe villagers on this count. Says he”Rice is available at the ration shop for Rs.11-14/kg., though BPL card holders get 25-kg rice per month at Rs.6.50/kg. Antyodaya card holders get 35-kg. Rice @ Rs.3/kg. We also buy sugar from the PDS shop at Rs.16/kg. Everybody gets 3-4 liters of kerosene @ Rs.10/litre”. The PDS shop opens for a day every month, and the dealer informs the villagers beforehand, but the catch lies in families having ready cash available on that particular day. Otherwise, they have to just wait for their turn next month…

Jai Shankar (40) faces a similar predicament. He has three sons, and he runs his family kitchen on an annual income of Rs.10, 000. Not surprisingly, he admits that “Food is always a problem. We all have to make sacrifices. On a routine day, we eat 3-kg. Accompanied with 1.5 kg. Fish; we also buy Rs.15 worth of vegetables, but its optional- no money, no vegetables! The masala , oil and salt etc. we buy for another Rs.7 every day”. Luckily, Jai Shankar is an Antyodaya card holder, which allows him to buy 33kg rice every month and some kerosene oil. “Sometimes- say, three times a year- we have some chicken!” he grins almost apologetically.

Who are the Nolia's?
Marine fishermen who exclusively depend on marine fishing inhabit 25 habitations along the coastal stretches of Ganjam district in Orissa and are called Nolias. Not only are they poor, but continue to remain physically and socially isolated, culturally deracinated and politically naïve.
In Ganjam, two distinct Telugu fishing castes – the Jalaries and the Vodabalijas, who are fairly widespread along the contiguous stretch of coastline in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh – are considered as Nolias. According to the local tradition, when women belonging to Telugu fishing caste went selling fish, it was a common practice to call them as ‘Nolias' after the heavy ear rings that the women wore., though the N olia's themselves did not look particularly enthused by this story!
Being considered ‘outsiders' has meant that development has largely all by bypassed them, as a result of which they have very little access to healthcare, education and other food and economic-related government schemes and programmes.
To make matters worse, they have no land rights and, more significantly, customary-use rights related to fishing areas. All this means that not only do the Nolia's have practically no legal recourse to their issues, they are denied even basic land rights for building homes, in spite of having lived in these villages for 50-years and more! According to the note on ‘MARINE FISHING & FISHING COMMUNITY IN GANJAM', “…the Nolia's also lack customary use rights in creeks and Chilika Lake despite fishing in those waters for generations. They play a next-to-nothing role in the political processes determining their lives, have little interaction with the administrative structures that control them…”

Sitting alongside, T. Sateya (60) jokingly remarks “just photocopy what Jai Shankar has said, and put my name on it!” But a sense of humor is only a guise for his discomfort in admitting that he also cannot provide for his family adequately. With 4 sons, their wives, 2 grandchildren and the couple themselves, Sateya has his task cut out for him. “I earn Rs.20, 000a year from fishing and manual labor. We cannot live on fish alone”. We live on roughly 5-kg. Rice every day, which costs us Rs.12/kg. We also need ½ kg. Of cooking oil every week, and including expenditure on salt, turmeric and other condiments, we actually spend Rs 50/week. Another Rs.60/week (at Rs.20/day x 3 days a week) we spend on buying vegetables. That's all…” he laughs and looks at his friends for support.

Given that even the story of B. Areya (45) is similar, I am tempted to take up Sateya on his idea-just photocopy Jai Shankar's story and put all their names down against it! But, on a more serious note, it is becoming apparent that food insecurity stalks every family in the village. While everyone's doing his or her best to cope, it seems an uphill task for most. On to Areya…

Areya has 6 members in his family: 3 sons (1 handicapped), a daughter and the couple themselves. “I earn about Rs.50-60 a day from fishing. All of it goes on buying food. We eat about 3.75-kg. Rice every day, and spend Rs. 5/day on buying oil, salt, turmeric, etc. Another Rs. 20 we spend ever day on vegetables, which we make twice a week. On an average, every meal we have consists of 300 gram of rice and 100/200 gram fish per head”.

His grouse is the BPL card- or lack thereof. Not being a BPL card owner, Areya has to buy everything from the open market at exorbitant prices. “Because I cannot afford milk for my children, I know they are malnourished, but there's very little I can do about it, though I do try and given them some biscuits now and then. But they are weak and suffer from fever or stomach problems”, he adds timidly.

T. Rama (50) has a family of 7 to support: three sons, a daughter and his three grandchildren. From manual labour and fishing, “I make about Rs.16, 000/year”, he adds, and admits he is genuinely puzzled why anyone could be interested in his food habits, and even more so in someone with so modest an income as his! “My income from fishing is hardly enough to support my family, though we try never to go to sleep on an empty stomach”.

Table 2: Malnutrition Levels of Children in Fishermen's Communities

District Name	Rural Families	Rural Families Below Poverty Line	Percentage of BPL families to rural families
Puri	236721	163639	69
Ganjam	478899	293493	61

“Daily, we need about 5-kg. Rice every day, which we buy at Rs.11-12/kg., and we spend another Rs.30 everyday on vegetables. While fish is our staple diet, declining productivity of the Lake forces us to survive only on rice and vegetables for 4 days a week. We hardly get to eat ½ kg every day! So we now also rely on dal , though dal too we have only 250 grams a day as a family”.

Again, like Areya, Rama is not a BPL card holder, and so has to buy everything from the open market, which leaves a gaping hole in his pocket. But he does something that makes him proud: “My children get to share a packet of biscuits amongst themselves every day!”

Fishing is fast becoming a less preferred means of livelihood in Orissa. This trend was only reinforced after the Orissa Traditional Fish Workers Union (OTFWU) and an NGO, Samudram, conducted a door-to-door survey on active fisher folk in the state. The study showed a drastic decline in the population of fishermen. Over the past 12 years, nearly 30,000 fisher folk out of 80,000 had to abandon their profession and migrate to Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa. They now work as porters and deckhands on mechanized boats. The shift has taken place because of diminishing returns as a result of depleting fish population, encroachments by non-traditional fisher folk and shrinking of fishing areas due to turtle conservation.

Table 3: BPL Families in Coastal Districts of Orissa

District Name	Rural Families	Rural Families Below Poverty Line	Percentage of BPL families to rural families
Puri	236721	163639	69
Ganjam	478899	293493	61

Source: People's Report on Status of Fisher People in Orissa – 2005

Published by OTFWU & Samudram.

A word on the lake itself would not be amiss here. Chilika Lake is large:

it is the largest lagoon in Asia. According to government records, the area covered by the Lake is around 1,055 sq.km which swells to 1,165 sq.km during the rainy season and gradually shrinks to 906 sq.km during summer. The average depth of the Lake varies from 1.73 to 3.7 meters during rainy season and 0.93 to 2.6 meters during summer.

The lake has three mouths: Muggar Mukh, near the village Arakhakuda; Palur Muhana, and the third are the opening up of the new mouth opposite village Sipakuda by CDA (Chilika Development Authority) in September, 2000. A number of islands are present in the lagoon, prominent among which are Nalabana, Kalijai, Somola, Honeymoon, Breakfast and Birds islands. The length of the outer channel is 35 kms. The total area of islands inside it is 223 sq. kms. And total number of rivers and nullah's 10.

The total fishermen population is 1, 22,339, of which 36,540 are male, 31, 588 female and 54,211 children (Source: Directorate of Fisheries Statistics, 2000-2001).

In Gajapati Nagar village, post Palur, via Humma in district Ganjam, 35-year old Batakrishna Behera is a trader-fisherman fallen on hard times.

“Indiscriminate and unrestricted trawling has devastated the Lake's fish stock and fish habitat, including the breeding ground, over last 10-years. It has never been so bad before, and now the absence of restrictions on trawling, prawn seed collection and mother prawn catching in estuaries and seashore, and a general political inertia to do something about banning prawn seed/ mother prawn collection has almost finished off the traditional marine fishermen,” he says passionately. “And now they are hitting our only source of food – fish- by putting restrictions on traditional fishing in the name of protecting sharks, Olive Ridley turtle and the like,” he says. “What do the politicians want- that we start eating chappati's like them? Or should we just leave and go away, which is already happening anyway”.

Batakrishna says that he trades in fish for only 1-2-months in a year, so low has the catch from the lake fallen.

Dandapani Behera (40), President, Primary Fishery Cooperative Society (PFCS), Gajapati Nagar village, says that the traditional fishermen in this and surrounding villages have now reached a nadir as far as fish catch is concerned. “When you cannot even catch enough to feed yourself- let alone sell it – then things cannot get any worse”.

“The Society was set up on July 15, 1954, with 120 members to protect the rights of fishermen. But then those were bountiful days”, he says nostalgically. “Today, we are migrating to Chhatisgarh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Bangalore, Sambhalpur and Mumbai – everywhere where there's work”.

Dandapani adds: ”The Sahiba Canal is run by Chilika Development Authority (CDA). The main canal is Palur - Sahiba canal, but CDA did not complete the dredging. Whatever dredging they did, they pile dup the mud on either sides of the canal. Now the dredged mud goes back into the canal, destroying the seeds of fish and prawn or impeding their movement to the lake from the seaward side. Thus, there is a decrease in the quantity of fish and prawn. They have not dredged the Sahiba canal, let alone the side canal that goes to Chilika (Sahiba canal connects sea and river Rushikulya to Chilika). The seed go to deep Chilika because the side canal is not deep enough to allow the seed to come there. The fishermen are not able to harvest fish because they cannot go to deep Chilika to fish. We want the side canal to be dredged properly, but is there anyone listening…?”

Kaliya Behera (30) says: ”Non-fishermen and fish mafia have captured the shallows for prawn culture and do not allow traditional fishermen to go anywhere near. Every year, there are incidents (average 10-12/year) involving gunfire, crude bombs, grenades, guns and knives, that lead to loss of life. The fishermen cannot go to fish in deep Chilika because they are not equipped to do so (and also because the leases have been given to coop. societies and FISH FED (a Government of Orissa-supported fishery federation). The non-fishermen operating out of their villages stop us from fishing, and use force if necessary.

The non-fishermen have a Lavana society (or Salt Society) that forcefully stops the flow of water in the main canal and diverts it to their salt pans. This is a central government society, and they do it in February/March every year- the main breeding season for fish in the lake. There's no one to stop them. How then will the fish breed?”, he asks.

”Sea pirates come and forcibly kill us traditional fishermen in our smaller, slower boats made of wood. They snatch our nets and even boats, especially the more expensive fibre glass reinforced plastic (FRP) boats that cost almost Rs 1,00,000 (1 US$_ Rs 39). Recently, seven men were killed and found floating near village Kumarpur. No one has any clue so far. The Coast Guard and maritime defense is not there. There are 165 villages around the lake here, so no one knows anyone, and with no defensive measures, we are sitting ducks for anyone. There is a navy outpost near Balugaon (10km away) on Chilika, but we have had no response from them so far,” says Kaliya Behera.

Mritunjay Behera (28) says “There are no medical facilities; allergy, diarrhea, malaria, brain fever, snake bites and scabies are rampant. More than 8,000 people, and we have no medical facilities. Government welfare programs like Relief cum Saving Scheme, fuel assistance, Old Age Pension/Widow Pension/Disability Pension, housing and/or insurance cover, provident fund are non-existent!”

Jaykrishna Behera (27) says that “We as fishermen average an income of Rs 700-800 every month from fish, and in the lean season, it is an abysmal Rs 150-200 a month! Can anyone survive on an income like this? It is because of this that the village sees almost 20% migration during summer, when there's no fishing in Chilika (because the water level is very low because of lesser water coming in from the sea. This is the season when Chilika visibly shrinks in area)”.

Vinod Behera (25) adds that “A small family in the village spends Rs 100 a day on food, apart from fish, which is, of course, free, unless they are forced to buy even that!). Because the income is in no way adequate to keep body and soul together of one man, let alone a family, most people - women, children and men, young and old – try and earn a few extra Rupees by doing manual labour. Otherwise, there's always the village money lender, who charges interest @ Rs 10 for every Rs 100 borrowed- every month! The PDS shop is irregular, and even though he sells rice, sugar and Kerosene oil, we know that black marketing is rampant. The good news is that it opens every month on a fixed day. I have seen a change in our diet since last 10 years. We now eat less fish & supplement it with other foods. Today, we eat well only once a day. And look at the irony: the nearest cyclone center is 2-km away at village Sipokoda, a non-fishermen's village! It is as if we traditional fishermen didn't count at all…!”

“Even in the best season - which lasts barely a 2-3 months in a year - an ordinary fish worker on a trawler cannot hope to earn more than Rs.1,000 a day when the catch is good. With this income from a few months' work, he has to provide for his family for the rest of the year. For those working on large nets-again bought on loan from prosperous non-fishermen and moneylenders- each jaal (net) ordinarily would have about 10 to 15 workers. Even here, 50 per cent of the catch goes to the owner straight away to repay the cost of the jaal . If it is a trawler, 60-65 per cent sales proceeds (after deducting expenses like fuel) would go to the owner of the boat. The rest is shared equally among the workers! If lucky, some get a bhatta (stipend) of Rs. 30-40 per day and most often, with dwindling marine resources, that is all the money a worker would get from a trip during the off-season,” says Mangaraj Panda, Secretary, United Artists Association, Ganjam, an NGO working with traditional fishermen communities.

“Usually, a catamaran with 3-4 rowers fetches each of them Rs.100 to Rs.150”, says Mangaraj. “But that is for the young men. For those above the age of 40 - unfit to go to sea, though many do out of desperation- the coast holds few opportunities to earn a living. At best, they make about Rs.20 to Rs.30 on days when they get work, either as manual labourers in a kaju (cashew) plantation, mending nets, or selling firewood”.

Kanda Allaya, Secretary, Orissa Traditional Fishworkers Union (OTFU), Ganjam, says that moneylenders who have advanced funds for FRP and mechanized boats hold claim to almost all the fish catch from these vessels. “This is leading to a situation wherein trade in fish is being increasingly controlled by a handful of powerful individuals, companies or their agents. They literally dictate the price of marine products that come in, by controlling the auction mechanism or by demanding the entire catch for the funds already advanced. The government should help us find alternative employment, because the younger generation is increasingly turning to illicit liquor to while away time and becoming unproductive quite early in their lives”.

As we watch the catamaran's glide back home to the jetty near Gajapati Nagar village with their miserable catch, each crease and furrow on the faces of these fishermen reflects their ever-growing indebtedness and marginalization- and their helplessness in the face of it all.

Aditya Malaviya

Bhopal/Ganjam/Puri

(Article written as part of “Bursaries for Journalists”, supported by CDL/GAA & EU)