Even while the Traditional Fishermen Rights Protection Bill prepared on the lines of the Forest Rights Act to protect fishermen’s traditional rights at all times awaits the government’s clearance, the Environment and Forest Ministry on Tuesday launched a new fisherfolk children education assistance scheme.
Describing it as a capacity development programme, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the scholarships would be provided to children of fisherfolk families for pursuing undergraduate and post-graduate degrees with major or specialisation in marine, coastal or fisheries management.
A total of 91 scholarships are planned initially to help seven students in each of the 13 coastal State and Union territories and the number will go up depending on the response, Ramesh added.
He also indicated that the new Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2011, that ensures benefits to fishermen, would be announced soon. It incorporates suggestions received from them during the nationwide consultations.
The most important benefit from CRZ 2011 for fishermen is that a number of development activities, like fishing jetty, fish drying yards, net mending yards, fish processing by traditional methods, boat building yards, ice plants, boat repairs etc shall be permitted also in the “no-development zone.”
Also, unlike the ban on any constructions up to 200 metres from the high tide line in case of all others, houses of the traditional fishing community will be permitted up to 100 metres.
[Source]
