Santosh Patnaik Visakhapatnam

Thenew fishing season in Andhra coast has commenced amid hopes of high yield notwithstanding dusman pre-monsoon showers, severe shortage of ice and increase in operational cost.

After tying their vessels at various fishing harbours and jetties, as the new season began, fisherfolk are raring to go hoping for a bumper harvest.

The 61-day annual conservation period, known as annual ban on the East Coast by the Government of India in association with the State authorities, was enforced to allow the catch to grow during the conservation period that ended at midnight of June 14. Due to Amavasya, the fisherfolk as a matter of their tradition offered prayers to the Goddess Gangamma, mostly by women, by pouring milk and turmeric water into the Bay of Bengal to seek blessings of the Goddess of Sea for the safe voyage of the fishermen on Tuesday.

Unlike previous years, heavy increase in diesel cost following West Asia conflict, labour charges and annual overhauling of boats, the operational cost has gone up manifold, Arjili Dasu, general secretary, Federation of Indian Fisher Organisation (FIFO), told Bizz Buzz on Wednesday.

Andhra Pradesh has around 2300 mechanised boats and 51,000 fiber boats mostly operated from Visakhapatnam, Pudimadaka, Bhavanapadu, Kakinada, Kalingapatnam and Machilipatnam. Due to severe shortage of ice, during the first two days of the new season, about 70 per cent of the boats have ventured into the sea. Fiber boats are equipped with 10 to 100 hp motors. While the fiber boats go on short voyages of two to five days, the mechanised boats go up to Gopalpur and Paradeep in Odisha with the hope of catching a large quantity of export-quality shrimp. The fiber boats mostly bank on brown shrimp, tuna skipjack and miscellaneous fish,Pomfret and konam, which have high demand in both domestic and international markets, are facing dwindling numbers.

The price of ice has gone up from Rs.120 to at least Rs.150 per can consisting of 50 to 70 kg. This is mainly due to increase in power tariff unless for the aquaculture farmers, for whom the tariff has been reduced to Rs.1.50 per unit from June 5.