The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Kolleru drive hits their livelihood

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Monday, Jan 07, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Kolleru drive hits their livelihood

G. Ravikiran

Fishermen are finding it difficult to get even a square meal

The half-acre of land promised is not yet given
Getting children educated remains a dream

PHOTO: CH. VIJAYA BHASKAR

Tough going: A fisherman taking traps in a dugout to be set at different places in the Kolleru lake in Krishna district. —

KAIKALURU: The rehabilitation of fishermen affected by the demolition of fish tanks under Operation Kolleru last year, which was promised by the authorities, has failed to take off, belying their expectations of eking out a decent living as they had before.

A visit to the villages situated in the Kolleru belt around Kaikaluru reveals a dramatic change in the lifestyles of local people, who have any number of pathetic stories to tell as to how they have been deprived of better income and more decent work that they enjoyed prior to Operation Kolleru. Almost all fishermen recount problems of difficulty in getting work, even as their hunt for fish in permitted areas is not yielding much, not even enough for their everyday living.

“It’s miserable”

“I’ve never expected my life will become this miserable. All that lease money from big farmers is lost. I can no longer find work. It is difficult to get two meals a day many a time,” says G. Kondaiah, a fisherman of Panderapalligudem near Upputeru, a channel that links the lake to the Bay of Bengal. Nagili, another fisherwoman of the same village, immediately lends her voice to the tale of woes, saying that they have got nothing though the officials told them that a half-acre land will be provided to each fisherman’s family. She is not sure whether the land would be a paddy field or a fish tank.

Hopes dashed

“Nobody knows what exactly they will give. But they say whatever the government gives will be given in the name of women. Even that is not materialising,” she points out. G. Venkateswaramma, another fisherwoman of Vadlakutithippa, is a worried woman, as all her dreams of educating her children in a convent school locally have been dashed midway after the Operation Kolleru was launched. “I’m not able to send my children to school now. Many families in my village have gone to fish in ponds in other areas. Some are even working in road-laying works,” she says. As she explains, those who leased out their lands for aquaculture by big parties used to receive an annual income of Rs.15,000, while other wage works used to fetch them about Rs.3,000 a month. “We had a comfortable life then,” she recalls.

Venkateswaramma says the officials talked of some rehabilitation but nothing has happened so far. Small loans have been given to members of local women’s self-help groups, but that is not sufficient to meet their overall requirements.

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