Team Herald
MARGAO: The wholesale fish market at Margao has become a battlefield for Goan and non-Goan fish traders and sadly the local fishermen seem to be losing the battle.
The traditional fishermen complain that they are being continuously sidelined and they don’t have a place to sell their catch in the market.
The wholesale fish market on the borders of Fatorda and Seraulim is the largest market in Goa supplying fish to the entire State. Fish from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra land at this market at 4 am and is redistributed. Local fish catch is only 30% of the total fish brought to the market.
The trucks which reach at night and wait in a queue enter at 4 am and are spread all over the market. The local traditional fishermen have to wait outside till the market is empty.
The traditional fishermen, who met the chief minister during his inspection of the market, complained to him that they are not given time to sell their fish in the market. Therefore, they requested him permission to sell their fish in the market till 11 am at the market. The local fishermen had also complained to the chief minister that they are forced to take their fish back due to lack of time and scope for sale.
Colva Panch and a local fisherman Menino Fernandes said the Goan fishermen, due to lack of time and space, are forced to sell fish at the beach itself. Colva, Benaulim, Mobor and Betul are some areas where there are many local fishermen making a living out of traditional fishing ways. However, this fish never gets a market that it deserves which forces the Goan fishermen to sell the fish at low price.
“Goan fishermen have to get a place in the fish market here (Margao). The fish market is being run by traders and couple of agents,” alleged Cruz Fernandes a local from Betalbatim.
“The fish coming from other States is given priority and their vehicles are allowed inside leaving little room for the small-time Goan wholesalers,” he alleged.
Fernandes has demanded that the government take interest in creating a level playing ground for all the fish wholesalers.
For a while, due to formalin, a shadow was cast over the fish coming from other States but after the fears subsided, the fish coming from outside Goa regained its market.
