Fishing vessels start mooring by shorelines after failing to continue deep-sea voyages due to the fresh increase in petroleum products' prices, making it difficult for the poor fishermen to meet the soaring cost of operation on a daily basis in the face of low returns.
Interviews with fishermen by Business Recorder on Monday revealed that the government's fresh step to increase the diesel price along with other petroleum products has compelled the poor seafarers to stop fishing and stay at coast. The mooring of boats to shorelines is expected to increase unemployment in the fisheries sector of the province, as a large number of fishermen resent the "democratic" government's inflationary step, as they believe rise in petroleum products' prices would leave them destitute at the end of the day.
A local veteran fisherman, Abdul Ghafoor of Baba Island, Keamari said the government was perhaps unaware of the far-reaching implication of its decision, as his community largely depended on fishing and would suffer utmost from the inflation. "We [fishermen] cannot increase prices of seafood on their own despite the cost of catch is much higher than returns on the local market," he said, adding that the local market was being operated and influenced by the auctioneers and the fishermen had no role in the catch price fixation.
A local boat owner, Rahim Uddin told Business Recorder that the long trip vessel which stayed trawling on the deep sea for around a month normally consumed some 1,000 litres of diesel a day. "With increase of Rs 4.70 per litre in diesel, per day cost of operation for a big vessel also soared by Rs 4700," he pointed out, saying that there were some 500 small and 200 big fishing boats engaged in fishing on a regular basis.
For the small boats, the operational cost, he said had increased by around 2300 per day. He said expenses of food etc, were additional. He said the government had previously increased the diesel price by Rs 4.64 per litre, which had had negative impacts on the earnings of poor fishermen. The fishermen have demanded of the government to withdraw the decision to increase the fuel prices so that they could continue their sea voyages for a better catch.