Wholesale fish prices surge by 131 pc in last five years

Chennai:

Ever wondered why eating fish is increasingly becoming a luxury? Wholesale fish prices rose by a whopping 131 per cent during the last five years. Fishermen attribute it to a depleting catch coupled with India’s growing appetite for fish aided by a rising per-capita income, urbanisation and an ever-evolving eating pattern.

According to a sector-specific analysis of fish prices conducted by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), the index value of fish was just over 126 during 2008-09, it rose past 291 as of 2012-13 due to a combination of factors like falling fish catch owing to rising water pollution, dumping of plastic and other harmful materials, absence of organized retail in fish trade, persistence of age-old distribution system, post-harvest losses, rising operating costs due to unabated diesel price rise and other such reasons resulting in high wastage and spoilage of fisheries resources.

Jaya Palayan, president of South India Fishermen Federation told Express that the fish prices have risen multifold in Tamil Nadu due to depleting stocks and the failure to curbing pollution in the seas. “In Tamil Nadu, the catch has been dwindling and fishermen are now putting on extra hours to eke out a living,” he said.

“On one side the government enforces fishing ban on trawlers during the breeding season but then it turns a blind eye to the untreated effluents being let into the sea. Earlier, we chose the catch now we have to go after the catch,” says Jaya Palayan.

 Interestingingly, Assocham says even the growth of fish production has declined to half from about seven per cent in 2008-09 to just about 3.5 per cent during 2012-13.

 “Wholesale inland fish prices rose by a whopping 200 per cent and marine fish prices rose by about 91 per cent during the last five years,” said D S Rawat, national secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the chamber’s analysis.

Palayan says that there is absence of cold storage or preservation of the fishing stock post catch. He estimates that 30 to 40 per cent of catch goes wasted or ends up as dry fish. “The need for the hour is to have hygienic community-based fish markets. It could help curb the prices,” he feels.

ASSOCHAM says there is the need to modernize fish markets across the country by setting up refrigerated storage facilities together with transport and handling/logistics support in the marketing centres.

Proper awareness and training about usage of latest technology must be imparted to fishermen so that they are able to commercially exploit fishery resources for domestic and export markets. Besides, the industry also needs to go through process of reengineering to be able to meet growing needs of domestic market for processed, packed and canned fish, the Assocham study says.