Bargaining for a start

Bargaining for a start

Rebuilding lives. That's an even tougher call than rebuilding houses. A lack of planning and coordination has bedevilled efforts at restoring livelihoods both on the part of the government and ngo s -- but unexpected fallouts have given people the space to negotiate changes.

Take the situation with the fishermen's boats. ngos, mainly, jumped in to distribute boats. This was partly because boats are tangible assets that can be showcased as successful rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the ngos ignored issues relating to coastal and marine ecology and the social structure.

Sail away
Thaddeus Koriya of ncrc points out that there has been an exponential growth in the number of boats in Nagapattinam, district, which was worst hit. The same is true of the two other badly-hit districts -- Cuddalore and Kanyakumari. This is not good news -- fish catches have already been dwindling and more boats mean more intensive fishing and smaller catches per boat. A state fisheries department document, 'Endeavour and Achievements, 2002-2003', shows marine fish catches in Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari fell from 70,212 tonnes and 46,440 tonnes respectively in 1997-98 to 43,974 and 19,643 tonnes in 2002-2003. "Replacing the fishing fleet to the pre-tsunami levels, without matching fisheries resource availability to fishing capacity, may prove may prove to be counter-productive in the long run," Sebastian Mathew of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers had warned soon after the tsunami struck.

It's not just numbers. The balance between mechanised trawlers, small fibreglass boats and traditional catamarans has altered drastically. With the explosion in the number of fibreglass boats catamarans are going out of business. It's a good thing that neither the government or ngos are distributing free trawlers -- that would have completely destroyed the balance. Given that small fishermen operate on really small margins, they could have been all but wiped out. Look at these figures. Lakshmanan, a fisherman from Sonankuppam village in Cuddalore, says a fibreglass boat with a crew of five gets Rs 500 to Rs 800 a day. That means a crew member gets Rs 50 to 100 a day after the owner keeps operational costs and his share.

That's just one part of the story. The other is that the traditional occupational arrangements in the fishing community are being badly disarranged. The balance between labour and boats is now heavily tilted -- too many boats, too few people.

Moreover, the attempt by ngos to force equity into the scene backfired because they did not know how the fishing operation worked. Earlier, the crew members of a fishing boat would share the day's proceeds after deducting operational expenses. In the new situation, where boats have been given to groups, fishermen are likely to revert to old arrangements -- sell their shares to one member and resume business.

But if this sounds like a completely unredeemed scenario, there's a bright side. A lot of fishermen are happy, even if their boats are at the moment being put to completely non-marine uses. The boats can be a valuable fallback option for fisherfolk -- they could always sell them. "I wouldn't be surprised if most of these boats landed up on the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh coasts," says Anthony Benchilas of ncrc.

Social churning
The way livelihood restoration has gone about has brought about a social churning of sorts. The fishing community has always been known to keep to itself and manage its own affairs. Caste panchayat s are very powerful. But with ngos coming in with their largesse, power is a commodity that can be negotiated -- in many places those with better bargaining skills have usurped the position of the old panchayats. In Akkarapettai and Nambiar Nagar in Nagapattinam, crew formed unions to negotiate with ngos. In Tharangambadi, a panchayat gave way to a new one because it couldn't drive a hard enough bargain.

Bargaining skills were important. Despite an agreement between the government and ngo s that those who got boats wouldn't get compensation, some got both. But some people got nothing. Most people in ancillary trades -- fish vendors, merchants, small ice-plant owners -- received little. A large population of dalit s engaged in inland fishing, pearl and algae collection and ornamental shell-making were even worse off. Farmers are being compensated, but the landless are not.

But despite everything, despite the sometimes eerie stillness, most people have picked up the threads of their lives. 12jav.net12jav.net