Barely had authorities managed to find a solution to the vexed waste disposal issue at the wholesale fish market at Margao, thanks to the High Court's intervention, the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) which looks at the business side of the market continues to grapple with an issue that successive governments have failed to address -- retail fish vending at the wholesale fish market.
Last week, in another attempt to clear the mess surrounding the market, authorities swooped down on fish sellers outside the wholesale market and confiscated boxes, baskets of fish, chairs and whatever they could latch on to in yet another bid to stop retail business at the market. Last Thursday, the premises were cleared off, and there was a 10 am deadline announced to shut the market.
While fish vendors lost heavily in the wake of the action, one never hoped that the script would eventually play out the way it did. In fact, the very next day some retail fish vendors returned, especially migrants, doing brisk business in the afternoon even as the controversy of fish vending refused to die down.
The issue of early closure of the market to maintain cleanliness has serious consequences and strikes at the very heart of traditional fishermen and their operations. The 10 am deadline for the wholesale fish market is not tenable for these fishermen because they return from the seas at odd hours. If the market is closed for them, they have no other option but to discard their catch.
The argument that retail vending cannot be allowed at wholesale fish markets is valid, but that's the job of authorities to clamp down on illegal businesses. If retail fish vending cannot be controlled, it exposes an inherent failure in the system, and traditional fishermen cannot be victims of this failure. They cannot be considered as part of the retail vending system.
It's time authorities come out with a solution to this issue that threatens to flare up into a local versus migrants debacle. It is obvious that migrants have flooded the retail fish market and have conveniently picked up the wholesale market as their base. Even after the closure of markets, several migrants are playing hide-and-seek with authorities and yet managing to do illegal business. The Margao municipal workers, inspectors and SGPDA officials have a bigger role to play.
The wholesale market has to extend its business hours to suit the traditional fishermen, and not merely accommodate the interests of those importing fish. We need to be conscious of the fact that traditional Goan businesses are dying because of the roadblocks they are facing. We cannot forget the time when the 'formalin in fish' hit Goans hard and common citizens had abandoned the markets. It was here that the traditional fisherman was the only hope and a provider.
The authorities are accountable for maintaining cleanliness and will have to report to the court next week. To a fair extent, the objective is achieved and one sees that all the waste and litter has disappeared. However, it defeats logic if livelihoods are affected in achieving the ambition of cleanliness. Authorities need to put checks and balances in place to filter out retail business at the site, not shut the market to cover failures.
