- West Bengal’s traditional practice of fishing at a khoti is being challenged with dwindling fish stock, mechanised fishing and financial instability.
- The 2017 National Marine Policy envisions sustainable fishing to enhance fish stocks and secure livelihoods. But experts say it has remained largely ineffective with poor implementation and budgetary support.
- Experts note there is an urgent need to revisit and regulate practices like trawl fishing and the use of purse seine nets, which contribute to overfishing and threaten the sustainability of marine ecosystems.
Kirttibas Patra, 59, from Thanaberiya village in Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, has been fishing in the Bay of Bengal since he was 12 years old. Nearly 70 years ago, the government gave his family space for fishing and drying the catch at a khoti, a dedicated fish landing centre. Here, fishers gather during the peak fishing season, typically from September to March, to carry out traditional fish processing practices. As part of this allocation, Patra’s family was also given a portion of land along the shore to build temporary huts and dry fish. These customary rights, vital to their livelihood, have been passed down generations.
The khotis are also where small-scale fishing is done, usually by small groups of two or three fishermen who fish within their designated space. After the catch, women sort the fish by quality and sun-dry them. Each khoti is managed by a committee that ensures adherence to fishing regulations, promoting fairness and collective cooperation.
This system, common in the Purba Medinipur and South 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal, allocates specific areas at sea and onshore to fishing families. When the fishing season begins in September, the grounds are mapped and demarcated, allowing families to claim their designated spaces. By March, the fishing operations end, and families return home.
Patra, who is also the secretary of Thanaberiya Matsya Khoti, the hub of fishing activity in the village, has growing concerns about the future of this traditional fishing system. Among his worries are the declining fish stocks and the lack of interest among the youth in continuing the profession. “When I started fishing, there were 55 boats in our khoti. Today, only 26 remain,” he says. Many fishers are abandoning the trade due to diminishing fish catch. Patra’s own sons left fishing last year after three consecutive years of losses and now work in a factory in Bengaluru. “Providing for the family is more important than anything else,” he says.
He recounts his last fishing trip on January 11, when he set out eight dol nets that caught only 60 kg of fish. “Two decades ago, four nets would yield about 300 kg in a single day,” he notes. The dol net is a traditional fishing technique, using a fixed, tapering bag net to catch fish in tidal streams.
Srikanta Das, a septuagenarian fisherman from the century-old Dadanpatrobar Matsya Khoti, shares a similar experience. “We used to catch over 300 kg in one trip. Now, it’s barely 60 to 70 kg,” he says. Two decades ago, the Dadanpatrobar Khoti was home to around 7,000 fishers; today, that number has halved. Active boats have decreased from 200 to 108.
The personal struggles shared by Patra and Das reflect a wider crisis along West Bengal’s 158-kilometer coastline. According to Debasis Shyamal, president of the Dakshin Banga Matsyajibi Forum (West Bengal Fishers’ Union), the problem affects all 42 khotis along the coast.
Fishers point to several contributing factors, with the rise of mechanised fishing, particularly bottom trawlers, being one of the main culprits. “Trawlers harvest everything, depleting marine life and leaving little for small-scale fishers,” Das says. The decline in fish stocks became noticeable two decades ago and has now reached unsustainable levels. They claim that pollution from coastal resorts and hotels has only exacerbated the situation.
Coastal erosion has reduced the land available for drying fish, while unpredictable weather and unseasonal rain disrupt fishing activities. Patra highlights that their work follows a 15-day cycle, during which fish are caught and dried. Recently, he lost an entire cycle (15 days) to unseasonal rain. “Now, I have 15 days less for fishing and getting my investment back,” he says, adding that his total investment in diesel and labour this season amounts to around Rs. three lakh (Rs. 300,000).
“Coastal communities operating under the khoti systems are vital in protecting the ecosystem of coastal areas,” Shyamal says. “They have been doing this for generations. Their presence is an indicator of a healthy coastline.”
Livelihoods at stake
Small-scale fishers across India’s coastlines are struggling, according to president of the National Federation of Small-Scale Fishworkers (NFSF) Pradip Chatterjee. A 2022 report by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute highlights the sharp decline of the artisanal, non-mechanised fishing sector in annual fish catch from 88% in 1960 to just 1% in 2022.
Trawling, an industrial method of fishing, introduced in the 1960s through initiatives like the Indo-Norwegian Project, has grown significantly, with approximately 30,486 trawlers currently operating in the country, according to the Marine Fisheries Census 2016. The estimated annual fish catch from trawlers in 2022 was 2.027 million tonnes, 58% of India’s total marine fish landings.
Chatterjee notes that many small-scale fishing boats, once manually operated, have now been motorised to compete with larger fleets, thereby increasing their capacity and fishing efforts. As a result, the cost of fishing has risen, with fishers now having to invest in diesel and other expenses. To cover these costs, many take out loans, but if their catch is insufficient, they face financial instability. However, their investment has been increasing while the fish catch has been going down. It has further increased the stress on fishers.
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Srikanta Das, a fisher from Dadanpatrobar Khoti, says that big contractors who lend money to small-scale fishers often seize their nets and boats when the fishers fail to repay the loans. Reflecting on his recent field visit to West Bengal, Sebastiao Rodrigues, general secretary of NFSF, shares that small-scale fishers often take loans from private individuals to sustain their fishing business. In exchange, they commit to giving their entire fish catch, fresh or dried, to the lenders throughout the fishing season. The private lenders then market the fish across India and even internationally, securing profits while fishers receive financing to stay afloat. However, in this system, the fishers bear the brunt if their catch estimate falls short.
Rodrigues emphasises the urgent need to revisit and regulate practices like trawl fishing and the use of purse seine nets, which contribute to overfishing and threaten the sustainability of marine ecosystems.
A vision that remains on paper
Recognising these challenges, the Government of India came up with an ambitious National Policy on Marine Fisheries in 2017. The policy aims to safeguard the ecological integrity of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that goes to 200 nautical miles from a country’s territorial sea through sustainable harvesting. For the first time, it also addresses habitat conservation and species protection, proposing measures such as fleet-size optimisation, species-specific and area-specific management plans, and the creation of fish refugia. Additionally, securing tenure rights and livelihoods for traditional fishers is a key focus of the policy.
Despite being introduced eight years ago, the national policy has yet to translate into concrete action, according to Chatterjee. “The government needs a detailed action plan and sufficient budgetary support to effectively implement the policy on the ground. Without these, marginalised fisherfolk will continue to be left behind,” he says.
Mayuresh Gangal, a research scholar at the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) who published a study in 2023 highlighting how marine policy has interacted with fish biology, says that fisheries efforts are mostly driven by socio-political factors and technological interventions that focus on how to maximise the catch. “It (marine policy) is selective in considering all the biological aspect of fisheries. From this perspective, the 2017 marine policy moves forward by including biodiversity (in its scope). This is a welcome step,” he says, adding that the policy will be effective when it translates into rules, regulations, schemes, or subsidies.
When asked about the adequacy of these steps for achieving sustainable fisheries in India’s marine sector and reviving both fish stocks and the livelihoods of small-scale fishers, he says, “If these policy decisions are implemented well, they can have the potential to prevent a collapse in fishing stocks for some time, but whether they will ensure sustained fisheries in the long term remains uncertain. Still, this is a step in the right direction for sustainable fisheries.”
Banner image: Traditional fisherfolk in West Bengal gather at a khoti, which is a fish landing centre where fishers gather during the peak fishing season, typically from September to March, to engage in traditional fishing practices. Image by Debasis Shyamal.
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