2Department of Environmental Sciences, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Nagarjuna Nagar, Guntur 522510, Andhra Pradesh, India
Keywords: Economy; Ecology; Subsidies; Poverty; Fishing policies
Andhra Pradesh State is having significant and most productive agricultural land in the country, a long coastline with aquaculture potential, significant mining and offshore oil and gas reserves, moderate levels of human development, significant entrepreneurial groups, moderately well-developed road and rail infrastructure, growing concentration of industrial activity, considerable potential for renewable energy development, and a large and prosperous Diaspora.
The traditional coastal communities of Andhra Pradesh are facing pressure from the land and the depletion of the ocean ecosystem. In particular, the coastal communities at Prakasam district are over burdened with problems of poverty, unfair competition from trawlers, lack of security, unpredictable natural disasters, scarcity of drinking water, industrial pollution and so on. Vodarevu (15.8136° N, 80.3547° E) marine fishing community is one of the suffering communities with poverty and pollution pangs in Andhra Pradesh situated at 7 kms away from Chirala town. In the Vodarevu, majority of the people belong to the Vada Balija caste, but of course, this community includes several small portion of heterogeneous mixture of people from other castes like Pattapu, pallikarulu and matyakarulu. It is a very rare case in Prakasam district to observe the co-existence of marine fishing castes for livelihoods. This kind of collective effort and mutual understandings of their traditional systems are protecting them from fall. It should also be note that this community consist of both fishing and non-fishing groups together that cooperate and coordinate with each other in daily life, while the livelihood of fisheries is threatened in many ways.
Improving the welfare of coastal fishers is an important social policy objective, some of the schemes such as fuel, boat and gear subsidies, may be encouraging participants to remain in a subsector that is already highly overcapitalised. Education levels tend to be low, making it difficult for fishers to take advantage of alternative employment opportunities in the expanding national economy.
Fishermen belong to the socially and economically weaker section of the population. The fishing villages are to a large extent geographically isolated: adequate infrastructure facilities, proper road communication and sufficient fresh water supplies are lacking. The living standards of fishing community are extremely poor compared to any other caste. They have to fight for their livelihood throughout the year. A majority of fishing families (97.3%) especially from coastal Andhra are living Below Poverty Line (BPL) compared to any other Caste in India.
Indian Government indirectly contributes towards the continued poverty and oppression of low castes and non-Hindus by 'masking' traditional discrimination. Robert Deliége [3-6] has studied the 'untouchable' communities of India extensively and states that the future of untouchables (and the poor in general) does not look encouraging and that policies such as 'positive discrimination' have accentuated caste differences [7], resulted in violence [8] but has contributed towards the 'caste' becoming a political force [6,9]. The proposed gains in equality are still uncertain [10,11].
"Both men and women struggled in the village, but the women, because of their gender, struggled and suffered twice as much as the men." [12]
The relatively unrepresentative role of women in the Panchayat [13], and the exclusion of women from traditional institutions [13-16] and even the newly created participatory institutions [17,18] has contributed to maintaining the role of women as 'second class citizens' in rural village life.
Vulnerability is considered to be closely linked to asset ownership; the more assets people have the less vulnerable they are [20-24]. There are strong linkages between poverty and vulnerability, in spite of this poverty is not always the predominate factor in determining levels of vulnerability but can reinforce some of the other factors [25].
Poor and unorganized people do not have a chance for political representation unless their interests can become a weapon in the struggles of the professional political field [26]. The politicization of poverty is necessary for the empowerment of the poor. Making poverty a public, moral, and political issue is often the basis upon which the poor gain leverage by making power work to their advantage through enrolling elite interests, through pro-poor coalitions, and from competition between elite groups [27]. This view of political representation argues against both interest group economism zero-sum view of structurally opposed interests dividing up the power cake (ibid), and voluntaristic approaches to empowerment through capacity building.
The integration of empowerment in poverty analysis is hindered, however, by the difficulty of measuring and monitoring progress towards empowerment [28]. Unless empowerment is measured, it is impossible to draw useful conclusions regarding the relationship or correlation between empowerment levels and poverty reduction, or the outcomes of strategies designed to empower individuals and groups [29].
To develop implementable and realistic policy options, donor agencies must understand the political context of the environments they work in (whether national, international, or local). There is a persistent sense that the emergence of poverty as an issue in formal political arenas—and of categories of the poor as politicians' constituencies—is a key feature of situations where rapid pro-poor change is likely to happen. Development agencies have little control over emerging political projects that create incentives for political participation among hitherto excluded populations. But it is helpful to have the capacity to analyze such processes and recognize where the potential for transformational change may be located.
"Institutions matter because they determine who is included or excluded and because they define the differing domains of control in state-society-community relations" [30]
"NGOs may be assumed to be less bureaucratic, wasteful or corrupt than governments, but under scrutinised groups can suffer from the same chief failing, they can get into bad ways because they are not accountable to anyone." [34]
Multiple violations such as deforestation, illegal constructions, sand mining, private encroachments of coasts and government apathy are leading to the destruction of some of the best sites of marine ecosystems in the study area, which is a cause of concern for environmentalists. The regressive and aggressive nature of people in Andhra Pradesh State in the recent times is not only challenging the democratic life of thousands of peace-loving innocent people but also inspiring unsolvable, unending, unnecessary debate/conflicts. Poaching of fish is turned as an international problem now. It is seriously threatening the livelihoods of fishing communities at local, regional, state, national and international levels. This is only because of irrationality and obscurity in the marine policies in the country. Small scale fisheries groups are the most vulnerable and are almost isolated due to the heavy competitiveness among the fishing communities, facing severe poverty. Vodarevu is one of this kinds facing poverty problem.
Poverty elimination and resolving the bitter conflicts among the fisher communities is a global challenge. There is an urgent need to safeguard the marine fisher and conserve the dwindling coastal and marine ecosystem. Issues related to how social institutions interact, who possesses social networks with whom, and how factors such as social status, caste, gender and affiliations with political parties can influence factors such as levels of poverty, individual and social resilience, power and exclusion/marginalisation and overall levels of vulnerability are all key to this analysis.
In India, 60.57% of the fishermen families were under BPL category as per CMFRI (2010) reports. Whereas, situation of fisheries is worst and all fishing families in coastal Andhra Pradesh are under BPL except some employees and mechanized boat owners. In Andhra Pradesh, 97.3% of marine families were under BPL category as per CMFRI (2010) reports. Out of 1,63,427 marine fishing families in coastal Andhra Pradesh, 1,59,101 families are under BPL.
Illiteracy, lack of infrastructure, unemployment, low living standards and poor implementation of welfare schemes are the important issues to be addressed by the government to eradicate poverty in Andhra Pradesh. The poverty cycle is given (figure 3).
Table 1 clearly explains status of Andhra marine fisheries compared to other states. While Gujarat and Maharashtra states have very less percentage of marine families under BPL, percentage is extremely high in coastal Andhra Pradesh accounted nearly 30% of total BPL marine families in India.
Most of the people are illiterate and they don't have any idea of schemes introduced by government. The elders of the fisheries community are unaware of many welfare schemes introduced by central government.
S No |
State |
% of Marine families under Below Poverty Line (BPL) |
1 |
West Bengal |
63.4% |
2 |
Orissa |
49.2% |
3 |
Andhra Pradesh |
97.3% |
4 |
Tamil Nadu |
66% |
5 |
Gujarat |
25.3% |
6 |
Kerala |
56.2% |
7 |
Maharashtra |
19.0% |
Source: CMFRI, National Marine Fisheries Census, 2010 |
S No |
Fishing item |
Subsidy amount Unpaid to Fishermen by Govt. |
DD amount taken by Fishermen at Prakasam District |
1 |
Big nets (61 fishermen) |
Rs. 1,00,000/- |
Rs. 1,00,000/- |
2 |
OBM engine (282 fishermen) |
Rs. 27,410/- |
Rs. 27,410/- |
3 |
Small nets (60 fishermen) |
Rs. 7,500/- |
Rs. 7,500/- |
4 |
Spreading net (25 fishermen) |
Rs. 5,000/- |
Rs. 5,000/- |
5 |
TVS moped (50 fishermen) |
Rs. 30,000/- |
Rs. 10,000/- |
If the village does not function properly, the state will not function, if the state does not function properly, the nation will not function, if the nation does not function properly, the global community will not function.
Figure 4 shows that until so far fish governance was operated from top down mechanism which generated more poverty problem to the traditional and small scale fishermen. This top down approach from global to village level. Whereas, in the bottom up governance mechanism from local village level to the global level the outcome may be sustainable. Following Gandhi's vision of the oceanic circle, we can project a global social order originating from the individual through the village and the community of villages, where the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to it and will also derive from this, its own strength.
Fishing is most continued as an inherited family or community profession, people get the experience of fishing in their childhood itself, so they do not generally think about going for higher education and going for a dignified job. In childhood and in young age, their profession would help them to get good pocket money. But when they have the responsibility of managing their family ,the income from fishing doesn't help them much, at that time they realize about the difficulty in their profession, but by then, it is too late for them of shifting on to other profession, so the government should bring the measure to solve the problems of fishermen they have to be given some job to lead their life during the dangerous times, it would help them to not go into the sea, during times when the tides are high and can be dangerous for their lives, government should also give them insurance coverage, the more 100% risk is fishing and they will protect the life of the dependents upon the death of fishermen so that his family is not left stranded, absolute poverty is the principle cause of misery today among fishermen.
A condition of a fishermen life so characterized by low life expectancy, meagre existence living in secluded and far-flung coastal areas, caste occupation and poverty ridden trap and living in constant lack of hope as to beneath any reasonable definition of human decency and dignity, fishermen still suffer all degradation and humiliation, they are the living monuments of social backwardness and utter poverty.
S No |
States |
Coastline |
Allocated NDM Fund (2015-2020) |
1 |
Gujarat |
1600 kms |
Rs. 3894 crores |
2 |
Kerala |
1014 kms |
Rs. 1022 crores |
3 |
Andhra Pradesh |
974 kms |
Rs. 2430 crores |
4 |
West Bengal |
950 kms |
Rs. 2853 crores |
5 |
Maharastra |
840 kms |
Rs. 8195 crores |
6 |
Tamilnadu |
720 kms |
Rs. 3751 crores |
7 |
Odisha |
560 kms |
Rs. 4130 crores |
A de-politicized view of empowerment can lead to donor agencies engaging in capacity-building activities that may reinforce power relations that are unfavourable to many poor people. A common resource, co-operatively managed and equitably distributed, will not be destroyed, whether by overfishing, which is a consequence of competition, or by pollution, which is a waste. Wisdom, accumulated by the village through centuries or even millennia, will inspire self-regulation to prevent both. Fishing, on which the fishing village depends, is not the only activity required for the sustainability of the village.
Moreover, most of the government schemes are confined to the papers only because of the government's tendency to initiate schemes without setting aside enough funds to successfully implement them, thereby almost willing them to failure. The more the number of schemes, the greater is the likelihood of inefficiency. Interests of national elites and the electoral concerns of those in power affect the state's policy choices, sector priorities, and programs, with important consequences for the poor. Equally, well-intentioned sector reform programs can run aground where they challenge vested interests, and democratic reforms often have limited or unpredictable effect on power relations. And where local elites are well placed to capture benefits and reservations (in education, employment, or for elections), or to manipulate the administrative system upon which the poor depend for their livelihood and for access to anti-poverty schemes, formal processes of decentralization may do little to reduce informal forces of domination [37]. people become empowered not in themselves, but through relationships with outsiders; and not through the validation of their existing knowledge and actions, but by seeking out and acknowledging the superiority of modern technology and lifestyles, and by aligning themselves with dominant cultural forms" [38,39].
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