Fishers across the State are benefiting from the new transparent system of marketing and distribution put in place by harbour management societies, said Minister J.Mercykutty Amma here on Tuesday.
Boats in the traditional sector were given permission to resume fishing on March 30, but strict regulatory measures were imposed, including a ban on auctions.
“The government was forced to ban auctions in order to avoid crowd in harbours and fish-landing centres. At present, it is the societies that fix the price of the catch based on the average price each variety fetched during the last seven days. And this system without any middlemen has increased the daily income of fishers,” she said.
While District Collector is the chairman and Fisheries Deputy Director is member-secretary of the society, it also includes representatives from Harbour Engineering, Matsyafed, Health, Food and Safety, local bodies, and trade unions.
Price stability
The Minister pointed out that the current system also ensured the same price throughout the day. “Earlier, there used to be a gradual decrease in price due to the involvement of middlemen. Catch from the boats returning late was sold at half the price of the first boats. Now, fishers in both the first and last boats will get the same price.” Rubbishing reports that Matsyafed was procuring huge amounts of fish, she said the department intervened only when there were no buyers for boats arriving late.
“We buy the fish so that they also get the price fixed by the society. At Punthura, the fishers used to get ₹25.4 lakh for 12.8 tonnes of fish earlier, but now the same quantity is sold for ₹33.39 lakh. In two days they received an extra income of ₹7.9 lakh. Malappuram alone recorded an increased income of ₹3.61 crore these days,” she added.
