KARACHI, 14: More than 20,00 people, largely fishermen , inhabiting the Islands off the coast of Keamari, are still without basic amenities because of neglect and apathy on the part of civic authorities. The grim faces of fishermen reflect hardships and miseries the islanders are faced with.
Baba-Bhit and Shamspir islands are part of UC-4 in Keamari Town. Once very attractive recreation spots for picnickers, the islands are now losing their natural beauty and charm, because of the filth and insanitation quite visible everywhere. Poverty-stricken as they are, most fishermen even find water being an expensive commodity, as it has to be shipped to the islands in drums through boats shuttling between the Keamari and the islands. The islanders have to spend money to buy the water.
A survey of these islands shows that basic health care facilities are still inadequate. Residents say they have to travel to city hospitals in case of any emergency. Local dispensaries are ill-equipped and remain always short of medicines. Former UC nazim Dr Yusuf, who is also a social worker, recalled the days when the sea water around these islands was blue. But now, he pointed out, it had turned black because of pollution it received in the shape of garbage and sewage discharged through different drains originating from various areas of the city.
According to him, fishing has been the main economic activity on the islands and a main source of income for the islanders, but this business, too, is now dwindling. He said the fishermen were living a very difficult life because they had been facing a host of socio-economic problems, especially lack of basic facilities like education, health are and drinking water.
He said there was only one public sector school, having primary, middle and higher secondary education, on Baba Island and this, too, was housed in a single building. On the Bhit Island, there is a primary and secondary school and a few private educational institutions run by NGOs. However, they are very expensive and beyond the affordability of the fishermen families.
The former UC nazim pointed out that a filter plant had been commissioned some time back but it was not in working order now. However, he said, the gas and telephone facilities were available.
He said unemployment was the pressing problem of the fishermen communities. He said the degradation of fish resources, the only livelihood of these communities, due to unsustainable exploitation of sea resources caused by over-fishing and the deep-sea trawlers’ activity, besides entry of a new commercial class in the fisheries sector and the rising cost of boat-building had shunted out a large number of fishermen families from their ancestral trade.
Because of this situation, the fisheries resources are under a constant threat of exhaustion. The situation is getting more alarming as fish stocks are rapidly decreasing.
He said there were many factors involved in the exhaustion and degradation of fisheries resources, some of them being a lack of interest on the part of state, growing population of the fishermen communities and influx of people from other sectors, use of harmful nets, pollution in coastal waters, over-fishing in coastal creeks, etc.
A visit to the Islands shows that fishermen communities are socially and economically marginalized. People are backward and they live in poor, dirty and unhygienic conditions. Most fishermen live a miserable life due to inadequate water supplies and health facilities. The literacy rate is very low because of the lack of incentives offered to the people to send their children to schools.
With the induction of mechanised fishing vessels, fishermen have lost their traditional fishing as well as net-making practices. Poverty is in its severe form due to a reduction in the per boat per trip fish catch, exploitative traditional fisheries marketing, and the informal credit system being operated by the middlemen.
