MARGAO
How come wholesale fish activity makes roaring business in the wee hours of the day when South Goa Collector Ruchika Katyal’s lockdown order has called for closure of fish and other markets, and district police chief SP Pankaj Kumar Singh’s overzealous men-in-uniform clampdown on the markets in the commercial capital?
This question has come to the fore with the wholesale fish activity taking place in the commercial capital and its outskirts, with fish imported from across the Maharashtra border.
While the Fatorda police and its Colva counterparts had cracked down on the wholesale fish business outside the wholesale fish market and along the western bypass when the lockdown had first came into force, the activity has now spread across the city and right under the nose of the law-enforcing agencies.
From Housing Board to the area near the Power House, and from the Margao ring road to the Western bypass road, the wholesale fish business has been doing roaring business, informed sources in the know.
SGPDA Chairman, MLA Wilfred D’Sa, had shut down the wholesale fish market after Covid resurfaced in the state in a big way on grounds that the very nature of the wholesale fish activity has no place for social distancing.
This has only thrown up a moot question whether the unauthorized and illegal wholesale fish business activity undertaken by unscrupulous traders has conformed to the Covid safety norms, including social distancing rules.
A video that went viral on Wednesday capturing how the wholesale activity was being carried on the narrow roads in the Housing Board area has only exposed the role of the men-in-uniform over the failure to reign in on the unauthorized activity, more so in violation of lockdown order.
Interestingly, the Margao Wholesale Fish Traders Association has distanced itself from the illegal fish activity.
Association President M Ibrahim said the association is not involved in holding the wholesale fish trade. “There may be three-four members who may be involved in the activity along with some traders from Maharashtra, but most of our members have abided by the lockdown order,” Ibrahim said.
He added: “Let the police order a crackdown and arrest those involved in the activity. The police are aware of the people involved in this unauthorized business. The association is in not connected to the illegal activity”.
Police officials informed that the police had in the past cracked a whip against the activity, adding that the unscrupulous elements have been shifting the activity from one place to another, throwing up another pertinent question whether intelligence gathering failure or otherwise have given an upper hand to the fish traders in carrying out the trade almost on a daily basis in violation of the district Collector’s order.
