Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s announcement to introduce identity cards for Goan fish sellers appears to be a strong statement in favour of protecting local livelihoods. By making eligibility contingent on a 15-year residency certificate and traditional ties to the trade, the State government has sought to project itself as a staunch guardian of Goan identity. Politically, the message is simple and appealing: keep Goa’s fish trade in the hands of locals.
However, beneath that reassuring narrative lies a policy that seems disconnected from the realities of the marketplace. Traditional Goan fish vendors have steadily disappeared from many markets, replaced by workers and traders from outside the State. A walk through any major fish market or a drive along Goa’s highways quickly makes that evident. Today, much of the retail fish business depends on non-local labour. Against that backdrop, linking the right to sell fish to a residency-based identity card creates an irony the government appears to have overlooked.
Many of these non-Goan vendors have now lived in Goa for well over 15 years and would comfortably qualify for the proposed cards. Rather than reserving the trade for locals, the policy could end up granting long-term legitimacy to those it was intended to exclude. In effect, the card risks becoming a permanent licence for non-locals to continue operating in that space, now legitimately.
The policy also places excessive faith in enforcement while ignoring the reasons illegal vending has flourished in the first place. Restricting sales to authorised markets and directing the police to remove roadside vendors may sound decisive, but these measures fail to address the administrative failures that tolerated the problem. The long-standing chaos surrounding fish vending, particularly around the SGPDA wholesale market in Margao where hundreds of unauthorised traders continue to operate, is not the result of weak laws. It is the result of poor enforcement.
Those operating outside the system have long learnt how to work around official machinery. Much of the trade takes place between 4 am and 7 am, before municipal officials or Food and Drugs Administration inspectors begin their rounds. Even when enforcement drives are launched, vendors often shift a short distance beyond municipal limits into neighbouring village panchayat areas, effectively placing themselves outside the jurisdiction of the city. Issuing another identity card does little to solve these structural deficiencies. It neither strengthens enforcement agencies nor creates the coordination and round-the-clock oversight needed to regulate the trade effectively.
There is also the question of whether the policy can withstand legal scrutiny. Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to carry on a trade or profession anywhere in the country. While governments are empowered to impose reasonable restrictions in the interests of public health, hygiene or urban planning, any measure that effectively excludes people on the basis of where they come from can face constitutional challenges.
By tightening access to municipal markets and relying on police action to clear roadside vendors, the government appears to be pursuing through administrative means what it may struggle to justify legally. If the policy is challenged and ultimately struck down, it will leave the very fishing community it claims to protect no better off than before.
Protecting Goa’s traditional fish trade requires more than identity cards and headline-grabbing announcements in an election season. It demands investment in modern fish markets, better infrastructure, hygienic vending spaces and consistent enforcement that applies equally to everyone. Without those structural reforms, the proposed “identity cards” risk becoming only a political gesture.
