Discussion on our assignments

Some of the ideas that can be explored are given below. These ideas are based on the interactions with the communities and ongoing initiatives at different places.

1. Mari-culture / ornamental fish farming
2. Fishing ancillary ventures
3. Eco-tourism
4. Wood related products
5. Plant / mangrove nursery
6. Poultry farming
7. Vocational training institute

All these initiatives will lead to improvement in the economic status of the communities. Ideas 1-6 will have immediate impact whereas the idea 7 has a longer gestation period and also requires more capital. Provision of marketing support will be essential in all the cases for lack of access to the markets and exploitation by intermediaries is one of the major problems faced by the people. One option is to have an indigenous marketing platform which will require a lot of money and effort. The other option is to enter into agreements with organization which have established marketing networks. These can be fair trade organizations, mom & pop stores or big retailers.

Mariculture
Mariculture is a specialized branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other products in the open ocean, an enclosed section of the ocean, or in tanks, ponds or raceways which are filled with seawater. An example of the latter is the farming of marine fish, including finfish and shellfish e.g. prawns, or oysters and seaweed in saltwater ponds. Non-food products produced by mariculture include: fish meal, nutrient agar, jewelries (e.g. cultured pearls), and cosmetics.

As sea water is the most easily available resource, cage culture (in open seas and coastal waters can be promoted). This activity can be taken up in Khadi where the fishing communities are facing shortage of fish. Detailed costs of mariculture need to be worked out.

Ornamental fish farming
Breeding of ornamental fish can be taken up as a small scale unit. A report by FAO puts the capital cost of such a unit at Rs 54000 which can help earn annual revenues of Rs 77000 with annual operating expenses of Rs 47000.

Fishing ancillary ventures
These can relate to value add products like fish pickles or knitting of fish nets. There can also be provision of cold storage facilities to fishermen. Some low cost process with wide network has to be thought of. Reefer vehicles can be used, which can collect the catch on a daily basis from the fishermen along the coastline and taken to cold storage facilities in consumption centers (Mumbai, Kolhapur, etc.). Owning the assets will need huge investments, one can start off with outsourcing the logistics, a market has to be identified-either tie-up with big retailers or hoteliers or sell it directly to the customers.

Eco-tourism
Eco friendly / rural tourism can be promoted in the scenic Ratnagiri & Sindhudurg. Schemes like Bed & Breakfast, adventure sports (places like Devgrah Fort can be used for the same). This should be a medium cost venture.

Wood related products
This could relate to greeting cards / herbal products. Already there are some organizations making greeting cards out of dried flowers and leaves. Mr Bhim Raskar told me that these cost as low as Re 1.5 per card and can be easily sold for Rs 5 and above. Similarly there are organizations collecting herbs from the forests and making medicinal products out of the same. But this may require extensive training too be given as to how to identify the herbs, moreover precaution has to be taken to maintain a high hygiene factor. This may be a high cost venture.

Plant / mangrove nursery
Preparing mangrove saplings is another low cost venture that can be taken up. These saplings can be either supplied to Department of Forest or sold off in retail. This has been experimented with in Sunderbans, wherein women reared mangrove saplings after collecting the seeds from the waterside. The Forest Department had guaranteed purchasing these saplings. It was easy for women to take up this as it didn’t require them to move out of their houses and caused no obstruction in their household chores. The investments in terms of money were negligible. It helped them earn Rs 1000 to 1500 each in one season.

Poultry farming
This again is an activity that can be taken up on small scale. Considering the living conditions and hygiene levels of the people, this will require a lot of training to be given on maintenance of health and hygiene especially if the produce is to be sold in cities or to be exported.

Vocational training institute
A vocational and educational institute can be set up on the lines of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences. This again is a highly capital intensive venture. But if the maritime educational institutes and corporates (like shipyards, shipping lines, etc.) are roped in; it is possible to set up such an institute. The educational institutes can set up as distance learning / online / mobile training center. A mobile vocational school - Mann Deshi Udyogini has been started by Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank.

Once the training is imparted, it will be essential to support the enterprises with initial capital, marketing, etc.

October 12, 2007

Anooya Tai , Aba and I decided to go to Dhalavali, Malpe and Mancha. These places have majority of Muslim population. The people here either do fishing in the Khadi (riverside) or are involved in related occupations like net weaving.

At Dhalavali, we called a meeting at a school. People here have for generations been doing fishing in Khadi and weaving nets. But off late, both these occupations have suffered a setback because the fish in Khadi have been depleting. The fish catch from areas like Vijaydurg & Deogad (places adjacent to the sea) is more in quantity and hence cheaper; so people prefer that over the Khadi fish. A truck carrying fish from Deogad comes in everyday early morning, the womenfolk buy these fish and move door to door in the nearby villages to sell the fish. They manage upto Rs 50 a day in cash or in kind (in exchange for rice).

People from Dhalavali cannot go out in sea as they have small boats and it is far from their village. During rain, they use hand nets to catch fish and during the rest of the year, they use small wooden boats (which can accommodate three persons) to catch fish. They make Rs 50-100 per person a day which again is not assured. They do not even have enough money to buy new nets and continue using old worn out nets and hence not able to catch enough fish. Many people weave nets and supply it to fishermen in Vijaydurg, Deogad and even Mumbai. This trade is dying because now there are machine made nets and hence the demand for handmade nets has gone down. Some people here have taken up tailoring and also work as construction labor.

People wish to expand their business but do not have enough money to do so. Banks are not easily accessible. Dhalavali is in the Devgad Taluka and a Bank operates out of the taluka head office which is far off from the village. Moreover, they have no collaterals to offer for the loans. They do not own any land. They have very small houses and in most cases the lands on which houses are built also do not belong to them.

This problem of non-availability of formal loans is not new to this area. This is the problem which is being addressed by the microfinance interventions. But in that also, so far the model has been that moneys are initially lent to a group for peer pressure is the only collateral that the microfinance money providers have. What I gathered from my interactions with the people at Dhalavali is that they would prefer to take loans on individual responsibility rather than in a group. Further, they would like to have a system wherein they have the flexibility with regards to the timing of repayment. For example, for 4 out of 12 months, their earnings decrease on account of lean fishing season. At such times, they even find it difficult to survive so paying back loans or interest thereof becomes a huge financial burden. The second point can be taken care of. In fact a lot of MFIs are now customizing their loan offerings to take care of this constraint. But as regards the first constraint, i.e. the hesitation on part of the people to form groups for the purpose of borrowing money, I am not aware of as to how this can be addressed.

Then we moved on to Malpe & Mancha, it appeared to me that Malpe and Mancha were worse off than Dhalavali. As it was the festive time (Eid time), it was not possible for us to meet many people in Malpe and Mancha. But as all the three places are by the riverside, there problems are similar. In Malpe, we were told that after 12th, the youngsters try to pursue higher education in cities like Mumbai, but are not able to meet the expenses and are hence forced to give up studies and take up jobs. In Mancha, we were told that earlier the people here used to make wooden boats and supplied them to fishing communities in Mumbai but now as the boats made of fiber are available which are more durable and lightweight; fishermen prefer those over the wooden boats.

The Muslim communities of these villages have a taluka level (at Deogad) central committee and any initiatives / activities are taken up in these villages in discussion with the committee. The idea is that any activity for social benefit should be taken up for all the villages and thus help a larger population.

In order to understand the lives of coastal communities in Maharashtra, I contacted Mr Bhim Raskar of Resource and Support Centre for Development (www.rscd.org.in). RSCD works for the the empowerment of marginalised sections especially women. This trip was planned alongwith two students of TISS, Kavita and Rimi, who were doing their monthly internship with RSCD. We started on 22nd night, Saturday from Panvel by rail.

September 23, 2007
We reached Vaibhavwadi Station at 11 am on Sunday. From there we took an auto to Sherpe village. Sherpe is one of the villages in Taluka Vaibhavwadi. It is divided into wadis (clusters) on the basis of community like Patil, Bhatt, Budh, Muslim, Lingayat, Jain. Here we met Mrs Anooya Kulkarni. Anooya Tai works with Mahila Rajsatta Andolan, a campaign run by RSCD and has been working for creating social awareness on variety of issues in this region for the past 10-12 years.

We went to Tarla, a town, to attend a meeting of people working on land rights of the tillers. I explained the purpose of my visit. They told us that the fishermen have no safeguard against “risks at sea”. The boat owners don’t pay them full wages, they have no insurance and in case of any mishap, they do not receive any compensation. The meeting went on for almost three hours wherein we were told that by an Act passed in late 1950s, the people who used the land - either for farming or had built up their houses on the land, were allowed to become the owners of the land. But the process involved is so cumbersome (legally and finnacially) that till date the title of the land has not passed on to these users of the land. This group is trying to create an awareness about the same in the Konkan region.

In the afternoon, we went to Vijaydurg. First we met an agent – Rashid. He did not want us to meet the fishermen / boat owners and said that everything was fine. Fishermen earn upto Rs 10000 a month. Fishing is a very flourishing business, all fishermen are insured and in case of accident, the victims are paid compensation by the boat owners and the fellow fishermen.

We could make out that he was not telling the real story, so we asked the shopkeepers of that area as to where could we meet the people who actually do the fishing. We then met a boat owner Ganesh. He told us that agents exploit them. They do not give them the right price of their produce. When there is a huge catch, agents reduce the rate and as there are no cold storage facilities, they are forced to sell the catch at low rate. Another reason which forces them to sell the catch to the agents is the fact that the boat owners take advance from the agents for the daily needs of the business as repairing the net, purchasing fuel, etc.

Huge fishing trawlers are a big threat to the small boats. The fishing trawlers are not allowed to fish in shallow waters, which are reserved for the small boats. Not only the trawlers violate this rule, they also rip apart the nets of small boats when they come in vicinity of each other. Though fishing is not permitted in the period June to September (because of rains and also because that is the fish breeding season), many people illegally continue doing so because they have no other way to earn money. This is risky not only because it is illegal but also because this period is not covered under insurance. In case of a mishap, the insurance company is not liable to pay any compensation. Hence, this period brings in a lot of adversity.

There are no fishermen co-operatives here, youth are educated and it appeared they were active in politics as well. They wish to form co-operatives and work for woman empowerment. Ganesh told us they once tried imparting vocational training to women but nobody turned up. It seems they do not know how to go about bringing these changes.

September 24, 2007
We went to Anandwadi in Deograh taluka. This is a cluster of fishing community (Gabid). They have around 70 houses with about 800 people. They live in joint families. They have built a temple which is a place for the people of wadi to get together for prayers, resolving disputes, etc. Religious traditions are so important for the people that they will go to any extent to honor the same irrespective of the fact that they are economically not doing well. The community must have spent a lot of money on building the temple; in fact we were told that it was compulsory for everyone to contribute to the construction of the same even if it meant that they had to borrow money for the same. Though there is nothing wrong in building a temple or places of religious / social significance but I felt that there were more important things to cater to, for example, on our way to the temple we saw that there were no proper roads, the whole place was littered. It would have been better to build a simple temple and spend the rest of the money on issue like cleanliness, health and sanitation, approach roads, etc.

The people do not want to go out of this place (which in itself is not a bad thing, in fact good that people do not migrate to other lands but that should not mean that they do not get an opportunity to raise their economic status), even the educated youth (graduates) join the fishing business though the earnings are erratic, as there are no jobs outside. They are aware of the subsidies provided by the government for buying fishing trawlers. They have around 10-12 trawlers among themselves. They have fishing co-operatives (3 in number) two of them help auction the catch, the third one only helps from groups of 7 for availing the trawler subsidy. The women here form groups to make things like laddoos, papads, performing poojas and thus augment the family income. They sell these things along with fish.

The govt plans to develop a fishing harbor here for which they will have to displace some of the people along the coast. But as the community is already facing shortage of land, the displaced people have been offered land far away from the coast which these people are not willing to accept. This is delaying the process of setting up harbor.

We visited a couple of houses also. As it was the time of Ganpati festival, all the houses were decorated. The houses were pucca and it appeared that people, here led a reasonably comfortable life.

Then we went to Kunkeshwar. There are 2 type of fishing people here. One is the gabid community and the other is non-gabid. Gabids are small fishermen, have small boats, are widely scattered, manage to catch little quantities of fish. They sometimes are not even able to manage single meal a day. They find availing bank loans too bureaucratic and prefer to borrow money from friends and relatives. Any kind of government help is full of so many formalities that they end up spending too much money on availing the same and hence that help is of no use. Moreover government measures are half baked. They were provided with ice boxes wherein they could store the fish but there are no ice factories nearby and if they get the ice from district market, it turns out to be too expensive.

The family we met is trying to have alternate sources of livelihood; they have started an eatery near the Kunkeshwar temple.

Then there are the non-gabid fishermen. They are not fishermen by caste but do fishing only for some months in a year. They have mango gardens and hence they earn enough, 8-12 k per month on an average. But this is only average, the flow of income is erratic and they have to borrow money from the moneylenders. Money lenders have a unique way of lending money. They do not charge any interest explicitly but they require these fishermen to give them some part of their catch (which obviously is the best catch). The fishermen are gullible enough to think that they are not paying any interest.

There are 9 groups of 30-40 people each. They have a different (involving more effort and risk) technique for catching fish. They use large non motorized boats. They spread a net at different levels under water and then pull it. The nets that they use are very large (costing upto 3 lacs). their fish is more fresh for they do not pull out the net immediately. But they mostly sell fish to agents who further sell it to poultry. They get rs 8-9 per kg. They do not sell it for direct consumption as they do not get good price for the same because of excess supply. The womenfolk here also sell laddoos, papads, etc.

The youth have mostly finished their school. General awareness about their rights is low. The people we met are Kubi Marathas which according to Tayi are OBCs but they believe they are Marathas. Guruji (the leader of the group) said that they once tried telling the authorities that they should be covered under OBC but the Government refused saying that they were Marathas and hence not OBCs. Tayi told them that they should fight against this.
Guruji said that the Government wants to promote tourism here but they want to set up pubs and bars which go against the traditions and culture of the local communities. He said that they would like to showcase their own culture for the purposes of tourism rather support foreign traditions. Hence they are in conflict with the govt.

Conclusion

Here I am summing up my understanding about this place and the fishing community here.

The different types of people in fishing trade are as follows

• Small boat owners: They are usually people from the so called fishing “Gabid” community. They own the boat and they themselves go out in the sea to catch the fish. They are scattered all along the coast and have to struggle a lot to make their ends meet
• Large boat owners: These are owned by fishermen in groups who go out fishing themselves and divide the catch among themselves
• Owners of fishing trawlers: These are comparatively rich people who own the trawlers and employ people who catch the fish for them. They take 50% of the catch and rest 50% is divided amongst the people who actually go out to catch the fish. The owners take care of the repair and maintenance, insurance, etc of the trawlers
• Boatless fishermen: they are the people who work either for the large boat owners or the fishing trawlers. They are at the mercy of the owners and many a times do not receive full wages. In case of mishaps, the boat owners do not pay the fishermen any compensation
• Agents: They play a very important role especially in case of boat owners. They purchase the catch from the fishermen and sell it to exporters, hoteliers, retailers, etc.

A few problems that I identified during my visit are as follows:
• Lack of access to market: Fishermen are dependent on agents who do not give them the right price for their catch. The infrastructure facilities as cold storage, are not available, hence fishermen are forced to sell off their catch at whatever price they get. Moving to the market on their own is an expensive proposition. Moreover, they do not have the network/ access to the buyers
• Lack of easy availability of credit: Because the formal sources of lending are so bureaucratic, fishermen take advance from the agents or village moneylenders. Agents are very willing to give advance for this brings upon an obligation on the fishermen to sell their produce to the agents even if the agents offer low price
• Limited alternative sources of livelihood: As the basic infrastructure is missing like availability of land, electricity, etc. there are very limited choices of alternative means of income. Some people have managed to own mango gardens collectively. Most of the women are engaged in cottage industries like making laddoos, papad, etc.
• Absence of will: People are facing problems in the fishing trade but they do not want to leave their traditional occupation. They do not think of improving the fishing techniques, increasing fish production or other ways to enhance their income. Even the educated youth lack the enthusiasm to improve the lot
• Low status of women: Women, though they contribute economically, do not enjoy a good status. They are not given the freedom to make their decisions; hardly any woman that we met at public places spoke in the presence of men. The reason that womenfolk didn’t turn up for the vocational trainings organized by Ganesh was that they were not supported by their husbands in doing so.

I discussed these problems with Anooya Tai, Kavita and Rimi and a few things (in the order of priority) that came through the discussion are as follows:
• People first need to be made aware of the possibilities of improvement. A will needs to be created wherein they do not depend on an external help but become determined to help themselves
• Creating market infrastructure: Provision of cold storage facilities and a marketing channel will help
• Devising means to promote the fishing trade: For example – to increase fish production (quantity and variety). This will reduce the pressure on the existing resources, help promote exports
• Alternate livelihood: There is a need to create support (physical infrastructure, training, marketing channel) to promote alternate livelihood.

I plan another visit this week to Sindhdurg wherein I will cover a few more clsuters of fishermen. I will try and identify the groups with whom we can start working. This selection will be based on the acuteness of their problems and the level of comfort that Anooya Tai and her network enjoys with these clusters.

If you have any suggestions / feedback / ideas as to how we can go about this, do let me know.

Disclaimer: Views expressed here are personal and not those of the firm.

This is the first of my experiences on lives of people living off the water bodies. Sundarbans are a part of the world's largest delta formed by the rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna. The Sundarban Tiger Reserve is a world heritage site. I contacted Asit Biswas of Help Tourism. Help Tourism is an organization promoting tourism in the North-east India in an environment friendly way and involving the local communities.

July 24. 2007
I took an early morning flight from Mumbai to Kolkata. Reached there around 9.30. From there on Sujan, an avid bird watcher and Asit, accompanied me. We moved to Sonakhali by road. It took us around 2 hours. Then from Sonakhali, we took a boat to Bali, where Help Tourism has an eco-tourist resort. By 2.30 we were at the camp.

It is said that Sundarban derives its name from Sundari tree, which are found in abundance in this region. There are in all 102 islands in the Sundarban area, of which 58 are inhabited by 3.5 to 4 million people, rest of the islands are declared as protected areas. The water channels in the Indian part of the Sundarbans, which is around 40%, are saline because of sea-water moving in and out of the channels. This is the reason only salt tolerant mangroves can survive here. In case of Bangladesh, there are fresh water rivers flowing and that is why the flora on the Indian and Bangladeshi side differ. This area is home to varied fauna as well, the most famous being the Royal Bengal Tiger. These tigers have been known to swim across the water channels and enter the area inhabited by human beings. This has many a time resulted in people killing the tigers, out of fear for their life. A fence has been put on the edges of the tiger reserve so that it is not possible for tigers to swim across the river and reach the human settlements. Before people enter the tiger reserve area, they worship a deity Banabibi. It is believed that the goddess protects human beings from tigers.

There are embankments on that side of the water channel where there are human settlements. This is to prevent the estuarine water from entering the agricultural fields. As the estuarine water is saline, it can cause damage to the crops and the fields, which may then take years to become arable again.

The traditional occupations of the people in Sundarbans have been fishing, farming and hunting. With a view to preserve the wild life, many people have been counseled to give up hunting and take up alternate employment. There are a few such people at the Help Tourism Camp who were earlier involved in hunting but now manage the camp.

Around 4 p.m., I went out with Anil, who has been actively involved in protection of Wildlife in Bali. He started the Bali Nature and Wildlife Conservation Society and is associated with the Wildlife Protection Society of India. He is keen on the socio-economic development of this area where he was born and brought up. He told me that the only way for people in this area to survive is by fishing and farming, which in most of the case turns out to be subsistence. It is a single crop area as people depend on rainwater for irrigation. Most of the people have a small piece of land and a pond. The land is used to grow some vegetables / paddy. The pond is used to cultivate some fish. Any excess produce is sold-off within the village or the nearby market at Goshaba but the prices fetched are low. The average family income in this area is in the range of Rs 1000-1500 per month.

We walked upto the local market, where I met the village-head at a teashop. He said if efforts are made to implement advanced agriculture and fishing techniques, the economic status of the people in this area could be improved. As there is no electricity, setting up an industrial unit here is a problem. Access to the market, be it agriculture produce, fish or any other product, is a major problem faced by the local people. Middlemen eat away most of the margins.

From here on, we used a motor cart to move around, I met the headmaster of the Bijoinagar School, probably the biggest in this area. The school has around 1300 students. In 2006, it upgraded to twelfth standard. It was growing dark by then. The headmaster told me that they charge Rs 150 from every student annually. The solar light is expensive one. The battery, which needs to be replaced after 3-4 years, costs around Rs 4-5000, which is too much for them to spend. He said womenfolk of the region could be encouraged to start some enterprise. They need to be empowered which is not easy because of the way they have lived all these years. They can be given some vocational training like beekeeping, tailoring, etc.

As there is no electricity in this area, people use oil lamps. To move around, they use battery-operated torches and at the marketplace they have diesel – kerosene generators which they use for 3-4 hours at night. While moving back towards the camp, I too had a chance to experience how it is to walk on muddy, sometimes slippery, walkways in absolute dark

July 25, 2007
Next day, I started alongwith Asit, Anil and Maina, the local co-coordinator for the women Self Help Groups (SHGs). Maina monitors 20 SHGs. We met 4 such groups. Most of the groups are in the saving phase. They have been in existence for 18-20 months. Each member has to save Rs 30 per month, which is not that easy as there are times when they have no income. The fund so accumulated is used by the group among themselves at 2% rate of interest per month. One of the SHGs lends money even to the women outside the group provided majority of the members of the group agree to do so. The rate of interest charged is 3% per month and the money is lent with the condition that the same would be retuned as and when needed by any of the group members. In some cases, banks have given loans to individual members guaranteed by the group. The group gives such guarantees if it feels that the individual genuinely needs the money. Asit said that as of now it is a great thing for these women that they are able to save some money. It gives them great confidence and improves their standing in the family. It will take some time for them be motivated enough to take up some enterprise. Some of the micro-enterprise ideas discussed were

1. Nursery
2. Developing renewable energy devices
3. Organic farming, bee-keeping, etc.
4. Ornamental fish

We then headed to one of the medical camps being organized in the village. There are no medical facilities in the immediate vicinity. Medical camps are organized twice in a month with the efforts and contribution of Help Tourism and WPSI. Almost 100 people had registered their name for consulting the doctor even before the doctor arrived. Help Tourism collects medicines from its patrons / medical fraternity in Kolkata and provides the same free of cost to these people. For any medical tests, villagers go to Caning or Kolkata. Asit explained that they plan to build a health center (a 8-10 bed hospital with a basic Operation Theatre and Lab near the camp).

Sundarbans is a recent human settlement, early 1900s and hence the people here have no traditional skills unlike other settlements where different types of arts and crafts have been practiced for centuries. Their exposure to the outside world is limited. The only luxury for the people here is the cell phone connectivity courtesy BSNL and Hutch who have installed their towers at Goshaba. But my experience is that the network is erratic at least in Bali and phone doesn’t work at many places.

Efforts are being made by local people like Anil, Headmaster of the Bijoinagar School to improve the conditions but there is a long way to go. Endeavor of Help Tourism who has developed eco-tourist camp providing employment to the local community is a good start.

Ideas as to how a positive impact can be made to the economic conditions of the people in this region are welcome. For example, it could relate to setting up infrastructure / vocational training / loans.