Chinese vessels caught fishing in Indian EEZ points at larger issue of illegal resource exploitation

Ten Chinese vessels that had raised a distress alarm seeking shelter in India during Cyclone Vayu, are being probed over charges of fishing illegally in Indian EEZ.

The vessels are currently being investigated under Maritime Zone India Law 1981. The issue came to light after they sought emergency shelter in Ratnagiri during Cyclone Vayu.

The Fu Yuan Yu fleet was traced back to a company based in China’s Fujian province. They had entered Indian waters after seeking permission from the Indian Coast Guards, according to a Hindustan Times report.

Ganesh B Nakhawa, the Chairman of the National Purse Seine Fishermen Welfare Association, said all the boats were found to be equipped with banned fishing gears such as bottom trawl nets, drifting gill nets, and dolphin attracting devices.

Also, none of these boats were mentioned in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) list, which is a regulatory body that decides which foreign vessels will be allowed to fish in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.

Nakhawa says that it is easiest for the foreign trawlers to indulge in illegal fishing during the monsoons because Indian fishermen are not allowed to venture into the sea at that time due to basic safety concerns.

The Koli community (local fishermen) have for long been alleging that several foreign vessels that hover close to India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (0ften within 200 nautical miles) have been indulging in illegal fishing on the sly.

While the Intelligence Bureau and the Indian Coast Guards are now probing deeper into the matter to find out the nationality of the 200 crew members who were on board, and more, Nakhawa says the problem is much deeper and dates back to the UPA era.

Pointing at the root cause of the problem allowing exploitation of our natural resources, he highlighted the ‘Letter of Permit’ scheme introduced by the Agricultural Ministry in 2002.

Non-profit organisation Greenpeace had even released a detailed report on it in the year 2015, outlining how foreign vessels misuse this scheme. To put it in context, the scheme allows Indian fishing firms to buy high-tech foreign vessels. However, such foreign vessels are only allowed to operate in our EEZ when it renounces its registration in the country of origin.

However, several such vessels continued to be registered in their country of origin, most of which belonged to Sri Lanka, Mauritius, China, and Taiwan, alleged Nakhawa.

Now, not only was dual registration deemed illegal as per the LoP scheme, but the foreign firms owning these vessels also made huge money by merely paying a commission to their proxy Indian owners.

After long-standing demands from the Indian Fishing communities, the LoP scheme was scrapped in 2017. Then Union Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh said it was rescinded to safeguard the interest of the local traditional fishermen.

Nakhawa says scrapping it did very little to “promote the Kolis” in effect. While we reportedly have one of the world’s last healthy tuna population and huge untapped resource in the deep waters, no local fisherman has been promoted by the government reap the benefit of this aquatic resource.

However, as per a report released by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare in 2017, since the ‘Blue Revolution’ scheme was launched in India in 2014 for the integrated development of the fisheries sector, overall production increased by 18.86%, with inland fish production registering a 26% growth.