Despite a sizeable number of marine police stations operating at different locations along the coast in the State, many fishermen have left villages reportedly due to illegal fishing during the last few years, much to the worry of local administrations.
According to information, as many as about 3,000 fishermen have disappeared so far from Sunapur village under Chikiti tehsil in Ganjam district on the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border during the last six years,.
The fishermen were suspected to have migrated to different places due to loss of livelihoods in their locality.
As per 2011 census, the total population was 4,000 in Sunapur village, where the number of households has now declined to 200 with a population of about 1,000.
“The saltwater fishes like Hilsa, Khainga, Surunga and Meji were plentily available in the Bahuda river mouth four or five years ago. The fishermen were earning by selling marine fishes in the market. However, that situation has altered now. As fishes have disappeared from the sea now, fishermen have gone to other places for earning livelihoods,’ said some villagers.
The locals complained of illegal fishing by the fishermen from Andhra Pradesh and Bangladesh that also created hindrance to carry out their occupation.
Most of the fishermen left for Puri for fishing and several moved to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to be engaged as daily labourers, they said.
Though the Government had set up a marine police station at Chikiti in 2014 to check illegal fishing by neigbouring fishermen and stop encroachment and militant infiltration, the objective seems not to have been fulfilled.
“Fishermen had approached the local administration, police and elected representatives with complaints of illegal fishing many times but their grievances fell on deaf ears only.
Thus, fed-up locals started migrating to other States and districts in search of work,” opined villagers.