Claiming that the sale of fish now being conducted under the pandemic protocol has helped suppress prices of the catch, mechanised fishing boat operators have appealed to the government to create a situation in which fishers received remunerative returns their efforts.

Kerala Boat Operators’ Association general secretary Joseph Xavier on Wednesday said the measures to prevent crowding at fishing harbours had resulted in a situation in which buyers tended to act as a monopoly to suppress the prices.

He said the boat operators were also affected by the restrictions on fishing days on and that a memorandum had been submitted to the government on the issue.

Mr. Xavier appealed to the government to protect the livelihood of fishers as they were being “discriminated against” in the name of the protocol, which has resulted in loss of fishing days as well as loss-making fishing expeditions.

He said the protocol was being used to treat fishermen from different harbours in a discriminatory manner so that each fishing expedition would effectively have only just one fishing day in the outer sea. This was against a situation in which fishers from Tamil Nadu were allowed to fish unrestricted and return to their harbours as and when their operations were completed.

Under the COVID-19 protocol in Kerala, each boat was being allowed only two to five days for each fishing expedition. As a result, these boats, which took about two days to reach their fishing grounds and another two days to return to their harbour ended up with just a day of fishing time. “This is unsustainable and causing loss to the fishing operations,” Mr. Xavier said.

“Many boats have returned with half their usual catch or without sufficient catch to sustain fishing expeditions as there is stringent punishment for violating the protocol. A fishing boat from Kannur that landed at Kollam was recently fined for violating the protocol, he said.