the crisis among the displaced adivasi fisherpeople, Kesla, july 2006

Source - Ladat Ja Re, Tawa Matsya Sangh

Challenges to the Tawa Matsya Sangh:

Over the last many years Tawa Matsya Sangh has been doing well in terms of providing fish, supporting the livelihood of thousands of Adivasis, besides providing a great chunk in royalty to the government for the fish collected. 

While the Sangh has been very successful in all respects it has been on tenterhooks at many stages. Firstly the 5 year contract renewal has been a major area of concern.   Though the Congress led Digvijay Singh government duly acknowledged the good work of the Sangh, it took a lot of lobbying from the Matsya Sangh to get the contract renewed for another five years in 2001.  The second contract of 5 years is soon going to expire in December 2006. TMS has made a demand that the lease period be extended for 10 years as this would give the Sangh a chance to do long term planning and implementation of development programmes.

The second area of concern is the panic created by the forest department which says that fishing is banned in the Tawa reservoir as the reservoir comes under the limits of the National Park’s protected forest cover as per the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA).  The WPA law forbids anyone from destroying, exploiting or removing any wildlife including forest produce from a sanctuary. However, the forest officials or the government is in no way able to establish the destruction of forests and wildlife by the fishing activities of the Adivasis.  The entire process of law and its understanding has been thrown to the winds.  Infact the Adivasis question this gross abuse of law and ask “was the government sleeping when it renewed our contract in 2001."