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Indo-Lanka fisheries delegations to check on progress
View(s):A Sri Lanka fisheries delegation will ask their Indian counterparts next week, on the progress of commitments reached at the Joint Working Group meeting early this year, a senior official from the ministry said.
“Both parties have agreed on many things, particularly the Indian govt.’s consent to phaseout bottom trawling in the Palk Strait, by adopting alternative fishing methods. We will look at the progress they have made on other mutual understandings also,” Fisheries Ministry Director General, M.C.L Fernando, told the Sunday Times.
The second official level meeting has been fixed for April 7 in Colombo.
At the ministerial meeting held in January this year, both sides agreed to a set of Standard Operating Procedures to expedite the release of fishermen in each other’s custody. It was decided to intensify cooperation on patrolling and to institute periodic interaction between the Coastguards of the two countries by setting up a “Hotline” between them.
Mr Fernando said that, since both parties agreed to find a lasting solution for the poaching issue, they should be committed to implement proposals that have been agreed upon in the ‘Action Plan’.
It is expected, the Indian delegation will also take up the issue of releasing Indian trawlers seized by the Sri Lanka Navy for poaching. However, no firm decision has been made, as fisheries groups in the North are divided on this issue. Jaffna Fishermen’s Divisional Co-op Societies Union this week wrote to Minister Mahinda Amaraweera that, seized boats can be released while ensuring those boats do not return to poach in the Palk Strait.
The Sunday Times earlier reported that, the Govt. is considering the release of some Indian trawlers, because of the lack of anchoring space for about 130 vessels now in custody. As a first phase, 42 trawlers seized in 2015, were scheduled for release.
In the letter to the minister, the fisher-folk union pointed out that some unregistered fisheries federations are working against fishermen’s interests and friendly ties between the two countries.
Ahead of the official meeting on Friday, fishermen representatives from the North have been summoned for a meeting with Minister Mahinda Amaraweera on Wednesday, to discuss poaching by Indian fishermen.
As agreed by both parties at the Joint Commission meeting in New Delhi, to release arrested fishermen in a fast track process, a fresh batch of 38 fishermen detained in Jaffna and Mannar were released within two weeks of their arrest. The last batch of poaching fishermen were arrested this week off Neduntheevu.