Fishermen take oath to protest the grant of permits to foreign fishing vessels

9 August 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 9 AUG: Fishermen living across the coast of West Bengal today took an oath to protest the grant of permits to foreign fishing vessels and demanded that these be revoked.
“The Letters of Permit scheme is nothing but allowing the foreigners to loot the marine resources of India. We want this scheme to be cancelled immediately,” said Mr Debashish Shyamal, general secretaryof DMF..
 Mr Shyamal said the Central government has recently issued 77 new Letters of Permit (LoP) to foreign fishing vessels over and above the 540 already existing permits.
 The fishermen under the banner of Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF), an affiliated body of the National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) today protested  at a programme held at Contai in East Midnapore and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to take immediate action on these matters.
 ,“At a time when the fisheries resources in the near shore waters of the country is showing alarming signs of reduced yield affecting millions of coastal fish workers this act of the Union government is abjectly anti-people,” said Mr Shyamal
 He also said: “Not only foreign vessels but also Indian trawlers using destructive fishing technology create havoc on the marine environment and resources. As a result, the local fishermen are facing huge financial losses”.
 Mr Shyamal said the Central government is also planning to set up 40 Nuclear Power Plants on the coast of the country.
 “We have requested the government to immediately cancel the planned nuclear power plants across the coast of the country as it will destroy the coastal ecology and severely affect the life and livelihood of millions of coastal fish workers,” the DMF said in the letter.
 The plan to set up nuclear power plants from Haripur (East Midnapore) to Kudankulam (Tamil Nadu) and Jaitapur (Maharashtra), to augment the power requirements of the country faced a stiff opposition from a section of fishermen who apprehended that setting up of such plants will destroy the marine ecology of the area. The DMF also highlighted in its letter that the assurance given and agreements arrived at during talks with the Government of India in the ministry of environment and forests, in the pre- and post-CRZ 2011 proclamation period, have not been honoured by the government.
 The fishermen today submitted a deputation before the superintendent of Contai Postal Department urging him to deliver their letter to the Prime Minister.