KARACHI, May 25: The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) has expressed concern over the inordinate delay in the issuance of notification regarding abolition of contract system in the province’s inland waters.
A PFF press release issued here said that on April 21 the Sindh chief minister had announced that the government had decided to abolish contract system of fishing in the inland water zones of the province and fishing licences would now be available to fishermen.
But it regretted that one month had been passed, but the notification had not been issued yet.
The PFF said that this situation was causing uneasiness among the fishermen as the contractors not only had been preventing them to fish but also expelling them from lakes and ponds.
It further maintained that it appeared that the contractors in league with the officials were conspiring and creating obstructions in the issuance of the notification.
A PFF spokesman said that the contract system had made the lives of fishermen miserable. According to him, the private sector contractors are allowed to catch only one-forth of the total catch under the contract system and the contractors get most of the fish catch through coercion as they consider the entire lake or pond as their personal property.
It is the practice that the contractors’ staff mostly purchases the share of fishermen at throwaway rates and if a fisherman refuses to sell his share, the contractors’ agent force them to do so. Even they resort to violence and force the fishermen to serve them, he added.
