The sea is in their backyard, and yet the fishermen from south Gujarat have to go miles away to the shores of Saurashtra for fishing.

Indiscriminate dumping of untreated industrial waste has taken its toll on their fish catch, forcing fishermen from south Gujarat to sail to Saurasthra — all the way to Porbandar and Okha for edible, saleable catch. P D Tandel, a fishing community leader in Onjal in Navsari, said that pollution in the sea has robbed the fishermen of their prosperity.

“A few years ago, there were ready markets to buy fish from us. Then, around 10 years ago, when the water started getting polluted, we went to Mumbai. The Marathi fishermen did not want us to fish in their seas, so we started going to Porbandar,” he said.

Tandel said that about 100 trawlers from his village operate in Porbandar and Okha. According to him, fishermen from south Gujarat operating in Porbandar, Okha or Veraval are often not treated well by local fishermen.

The managing director of the Gujarat Fishermen’s Cooperative Association Limited, a sister concern of the Gujarat Department of Fisheries, I J Parikh, said, “It is true that pollution is partly the cause behind the low catch. However, we do buy fish from the local fisherman in the area.”

Ashok Tandel, 48, a resident of Tadgam village, blames the low catch on the hazardous waste dumped by the Sarigam Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) units right next to a creek in the beach which otherwise fetched the fishermen the best catch during the monsoons.

... contd.