KOCHI: The newly released Kerala Marine Fishing Regulation Rules 2018 is serving as a temporary baseline document for other coastal states to amend their respective Marine Fishing Regulation Act (MFRA) and rules in the management of the fishing sector.At the South Indian fisheries ministers’ conference that concluded here on Sunday, officials from six states and three Union territories made the initial move to put a unified front for evolving common rules for the peninsular states in this sector, which could then be taken further to other coastal states.Kerala is the only state in the country to have amended the KMFR Act 1980 (on September 18, 2017) and one year later, formulated the rules (on September 1). At a meeting held in Delhi last month, the central government officials and coastal states expressed their appreciation and most of them are now drafting their respective Act and rules based on Kerala’s gazette notifications.Unanimously, they sought to pressurize the need for a separate fisheries ministry at the Centre. As of now, the fisheries sector comes under ministries of agriculture, commerce, shipping and external affairs. “We have been discussing this issue and we will raise it in the Parliament also,” said state fisheries minister J Mercykutty Amma. Malladi Krishna Rao, minister for fisheries, Puducherry , said since there was no dedicated ministry for fisheries, the sector was not being considered with sensitivity and proper importance. “If there’s an issue with farmers, the entire Central machinery steps in to help them. The fisheries sector is also of equal importance against the backdrop of growing food security issues.”Fisheries ministers from Kerala, Maharashtra and Pondicherry attended the meet besides officials from all the southern states and Union territories of Lakshadweep and Andamans. They raised the issues of fishermen from other states coming and fishing in their areas.Fisheries development commissioner Paul Pandian said the Centre would consider states’ demand for extending the fishing areas from 12 nautical miles — which is the territorial waters — to 36 nautical miles as most fishing boats have high-speed engines. “We are coming up with new guidelines for the National Policy for Marine Fisheries (NPMF).” He said it would include an advisory of engine horsepower in accordance with the length of the fishing vessel.The conference of fisheries ministers from south Indian states has unanimously decided to implement in all the southern states the minimum legal size (MLS) recommended by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) to curb juvenile fishing, said Mercykutty Amma. “Kerala has already implemented the MLS for 58 fish species to ban juvenile fishing. Now, other states have also come forward to implement the measure in their territorial waters to make the regulation more effective,” she added.The meeting also urged the Union government to reduce the fuel price and to waive road tax for fuel for fishing vessels. Fisheries officials of the south Indian states arrived at a consensus for demanding the Centre to give the authority to the states to provide fishing rights beyond the territorial waters of 12 nautical miles. The conference also decided to put pressure on the Union government to increase the unit cost of deep sea fishing vessels from the existing Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore.

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