Cause & effect
It seems that the people of Sanguem are puzzled why they are unable to find much fresh water fish in the numerous streams in Goa’s most hilly and forested taluka. That sounds familiar, does it not? It’s just like how Goa’s trawler owners are puzzled why they are netting less fish from the sea each year.
Everything has a cause, and every action has an effect. Trawler owners have been putting pressure on the government to get rid of the trawling ban during the monsoon months. Traditionally, fisherfolk on India’s west coast stop fishing with the first rains and resume only after the ‘Narali Pournima’ festival, usually in mid-August. This period, when the seas are rough, also corresponds with the fish spawning season. This is a happy coincidence that allows fisherfolk to avoid the risk of the rough seas, while the fish get an opportunity to breed undisturbed and replenish their numbers.
Goa has too many trawlers. The Fisheries Department admits this, but it has never tried to put a limit on the number of trawlers it licenses. After fish catches declined precipitously over a decade ago and the government declared a fish famine, the monsoon fishing ban was imposed, to allow fish to breed. However, its most vociferous opponents have been the trawler owners themselves.
Saying that they were missing out on lucrative ‘solar sungttam’ – a species of prawn that they claim is plentiful only in the last week of July and the first week of August – the trawler owners successfully got the fishing ban period reduced from 60 days to 45 days. Over the years, this reduced breeding period combined with an excess of trawlers has had its effect; catches have declined steeply. Effect has naturally followed cause. But the trawler owners, regrettably, have not stopped to think. Instead, they want government aid and ‘compensation’. Why should the taxpayer foot the bill?
Similarly, if Sanguemkars are wondering why the fresh water fish coming up into their streams have reduced over the years, let them cast their thoughts back to how many large fish full of ‘gabolli’ they caught in years gone by, and prevented from laying eggs. Let them think about whether there were enough left to breed new generations. Let them ponder about how many ‘gelatin’ sticks they used to kill fish, wiping out all life in those streams.
Unless we let the paddy grow, there will be no rice. Similarly, unless we let the fish lay eggs and produce young ones, there will be no more fish. Sanguem’s farming folk ought to understand this.
What they need to be even more worried about is that despite heavy rains, the streams are not flowing steadily. One possible reason is that more water is running off when it rains, and not enough is percolating into the ground to re-emerge as springs and create steady streams. Less percolation is usually the result of deforestation, as rain water tends to percolate into the soil alongside the roots of trees that burrow deep into the earth. That could have even worse effects in the years to come.
Price reduction!
The Goa government, we are told, has decided to reduce the rates it proposed to charge at the new Goa Sadan at Chanakyapuri in New Delhi. At Rs1,500 per person per night, the Sadan’s charges were on par with a three- to four-star hotel!
A state guest house in New Delhi is for government servants and citizens who have work in the national capital, and want to avail of inexpensive accommodation while they are there. Other state governments charge around Rs1,500 per room, or Rs100 to Rs300 per bed in a dormitory.
Why the exorbitant prices; just because Goa has a ‘high’ per capita income?
