The Coastal Karnataka Fishermen Action Committee, which is a confederation of various fishermen organisations of coastal Karnataka, has urged the government to bring down the Central excise duty on diesel supplied for fishing activities.

Addressing presspersons in Mangaluru on Thursday, Manohar Boloor, president of the action committee, said that the price of diesel used for mechanised fishing boats has gone up by ₹16.50 a litre in the last one year. This has put pressure on fishermen engaged in deep-sea fishing, he said.

Nithin Kumar, vice-president of the action committee, said a mechanised boat, which carries out multi-day deep-sea fishing, requires around 5,000 litres of diesel for a trip. The increase of ₹16.50 a litre of diesel has made the mechanised boat operators to spend additional ₹80,000 per trip.

Nithin Kumar said nearly 50 per cent of mechanised boats in coastal Karnataka have stopped operations. The three districts of coastal Karnataka – Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada – have around 6,000 mechanised boats.

These boats provide direct employment to more than 80,000 people. Apart from this, various other people, who are involved in allied activities, get indirect employment, he said. Boloor said fishermen leaders from the west coast met in Goa recently. The meeting decided to take a delegation of fishermen leaders to the elected representatives from the west coast in Delhi during Parliament session.

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