KARACHI, June 5: The small fishermen from Lyari Town have urged the Sindh government to implement the reforms programme announced by the MQM leadership for the fishermen community.

They said that the community was the most neglected segment of the society and for years, no government had taken any step for its welfare. They said the community had always been betrayed by its elected representatives who, after being elected, would promote only their own interests.

Office-bearers of the Anjuman Khadda Fishermen Karachi Jamaat, one of the oldest community-based organisations

in Lyari, said the fishermen had been facing a lot of problems for many years and were living a miserable life.

They pointed out that the seasonal ban on fishing in June-July period, officially declared as breeding season, had always been applied only to small boat-owners and never to the deep-sea trawlers. Consequently, they added, small fishermen faced starvation during this period as they had no other alternative livelihood available to them. No financial assistance was provided to them by any government agency, they said.

They said that the Fishermen Cooperative Society had been rendered ineffective as it was doing without a chairman for more than a year now, and its affairs were being run by an ad hoc managing committee.

Moreover, the CBO official said, there had been no landing facility for small fishermen at the Karachi Fish Harbour and the decision to meet this longstanding demand was yet to be implemented.

They pointed out that it was for the first time that a policy statement had been issued by a political party regarding the fishermen’s grievances. Welcomed the MQM chief’s statement, they said that since the party was a coalition partner, the fishermen community expected that it would press the government to implement all the pledges contained in Mr Altaf Hussain’s address to the audience of the recent Kakri Ground gathering.