The Hindu Business Line : Fishing community seeks loan waiver

The National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF), the apex body of State level fishworkers’ unions, have demanded that around Rs 500 crore loan of fishworkers be waived and their right to reside within the 500 metres from the coast and their traditional right for conventional use of marine resources be legally established.

The NFF Chairperson, Mr Harekrishna Debnath, told Business Line that “We have had a discussion with the Food and Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, and he has assured us that the Ministry would take up the issue of debt waivers for the fishing community with concerned authorities to sort out technicalities of the matter.”

Though the Government has included fishermen loan along with the Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme a few weeks after the Budget following demand from the fishing unions, according to Mr Debnath, the benefits have not reached the people.

“Though exact estimates are not available, the total unpaid debt of fishworkers would approximately be around Rs 500 crore,” he said.

Explaining the situation he said “The fishworkers are indebted to their respective cooperatives and are defaulters. However, since many of these cooperatives have repaid their loans to their principle lenders, the individual fisherman’s debts are not reflected and thus they are technically not eligible for the debt waiver scheme.”

The NFF chief also pointed out the lack of institutional credit support to the fishing industry.

“The fishermen often have lakhs of rupees worth assets floating in water with very little assets on shore. Most of the assets at sea would have been financed by middlemen or moneylenders. The absence of collateral like land, the huge uncertainties in fishing and the difficulties in dealing with fishermen have made fishing very unattractive for formal financial institutional support,” he said.

The specific nature of the fishing industry calls for tailor-made schemes with wider range of purposes, including loans taken for housing, health and education,” he said.

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