High Court reprimands govt for doing away with fishing tenders

Fishing contracts for 54 reservoirs were allotted to different individuals and groups in July, for the first time, doing away with the government Leasing Policy for Reservoirs of Inland Fisheries — 2004, which insists on tenders. The contracts were instead fixed on the basis of upset prices.

A division bench headed by judges R Doshit and S Dave ordered a cancellation of contracts for the Fofal, Bhadar, Aji-III and Macchu-I dams. All the four dams are located in Rajkot district. The High Court also rejected the claim that the tender process had been scrapped to avoid hurting the religious feelings of people.

“In its order, the court said: it is being done by the fisheries minister who has no power to do so under the policy. It has been done on extraneous grounds,” said Mukul Sinha, the petitioner’s lawyer. The government’s tender policy states that tenders are a must while awarding fishing rights in non-tribal areas. Out of the total 54 reservoirs, 48 fall in the non-tribal areas and only three are in tribal domain.

The High Court has now ordered the state government to float tenders and re-allot contracts by October 15. The court gave its judgment in connection with the writ petition filed by a Palanpur resident, Issac Mohammad, against silently awarding the contracts, due to which the state government incurred losses to the tune of several crores. Four other similar cases involving other reservoirs and a PIL have also been filed in this regard.

Solanki, however, told Newsline: “We have not received the copy of the court order yet.”

The government’s counter affidavit in the case cited nine reasons for not following the tender system, and the chief one was that sentiments of people associated with religious groups are hurt when the tender process is followed. “Taking into consideration the religious sentiments of groups like the Jains, the state government had decided to carry out awarding fishing contracts silently rather than through public tenders,” said Solanki.

The government’s affidavit also claimed that the tender process had been done away with to support the state’s policy of ensuring priority treatment for Padhar, Adivasi and backward community groups.

But there are also allegations that the tender process favours the financially strong groups; the poor are not able to compete in the tenders due to the high bids, besides the huge loss.

Usually, the bids for five-year fishing rights have crossed Rs 10 lakh for the bigger reservoirs extending over 200 hectares. But now, most of these reservoirs have been palmed off this year for pittances without calling any tenders, as was in the case of the Bhadar Dam. The fishing right for Bhadar was tendered for Rs 11 lakh last term, but was given away without a tender for Rs 3 lakh this time. The contracted sums for the rest of the 53 dams have also been drastically slashed the same way.