Anil Pathak, Gandhinagar, 28 March 2013

With the drying up of at-least 180 small and big dams in Saurashtra region the inland farming of fisheries has run into trouble and more than 20,000 fishermen dependent on fisheries have urged the state government to announce relief measures for them.

Sources in the fisheries department said that big dams like Bhadar , Machhu Aaji in Rajkot district while Sasoi in Jamnagar district and Kalubhar in Bhavnagar district have dried up and there was no possibility of farming of fish and other marine products at these big dams and other small and medium dams in Saurashtra which fetched a revenue of around Rs.80 crore following sale of fish from inland farming.

Dr H V Dave a retired former fisheries deputy commissioner told this correspondent that the fishermen who have paid huge sum for contract of farming in sweet waters of these dams are finding it difficult to manage their families as the farming of fish has stopped since there is no water in the dams in Saurashtra.

A fisherman from Rajkot district has paid a sum of Rs.1.5 crore as contract money for fishing in Bhadar dam but now things are beyond his reach and has been seeking the help from the government.He earns more than Rs 10 crore from business of fish from this dam which is one of the biggest in Saurashtra.

Several fishermen from Saurashtra have urged the state government to announce relief for them as they would have to face severe hardship following failure of monsoon which has resulted into drying up of the sams affecting the inland farming in the region.The fishermen dependent on inland farming operate more than 5,000 boats to ferry the fish from dam waters to the banks. The state has in all 36,000 fishing boats including 10,000 mechanized boats. While there are 2,18,000 registered fishermen in the state.