The crumbling state of Chapora jetty is evident as rusted or missing mooring boulders leave boats with nowhere secure to dock, highlighting years of neglect.
MAPUSA
The sun rose over Goa's coastline on August 1 to signal the start of another fishing season – a time of anticipation, renewal and bustling jetties.
But at Chapora, the silence was deafening. Where engines once roared and nets danced in the wind, now only rust, broken tin sheets and idle boats remain. The Chapora jetty, once a proud nerve centre of Bardez’s fishing economy, now stands as a painful monument to years of official neglect and community despair.
At Malim and Cutbona, boats were prepped, nets checked, iceboxes filled. At Chapora, the season hadn’t even begun. The culprit is all too familiar: a stubborn sand bar at the mouth of the river that forms every year, stranding boats and delaying the season by at least two months – a delay many fishermen simply cannot afford.
“Every time we try to head out early, boats get stuck. Some are damaged, some just give up. We’ve lost so much,” said Sunil Wadkar, a boat owner who’s watched his peers abandon the trade over the years.
From more than 80 boats once docked here, barely 40 remain. But nature’s obstacle is only half the story. The rest lies in the heart-breaking state of the jetty itself. Mooring stones have disintegrated. Roofs are collapsing. Toilet facilities? None. Water? Absent. Cold storage? Long gone. “Our men – most of them migrants – have no drinking water, no place to rest, nowhere to even wash up. Is this how you expect us to work?” Wadkar asks, frustration mounting.
A local resident Sagardeep Sirsaikar, who operates a couple of boats, calls the situation “a slow death” for the fishing community. “Once, we had cold storage here. That was over a decade ago. Now, if we get a good catch, we lose half of it because there’s nowhere to store it. Our earnings vanish,” he lamented.
The Chapora Boat Owners Cooperative Society, led by Balbhim Malvankar, has written letters, knocked on doors, met ministers – all in vain. “The Fisheries Minister doesn’t come to our events. Our problems are ignored. Our voices don’t count,” Malvankar said bitterly.
The community’s anger isn’t just about neglect – it’s about betrayal. Each fishing season brings fresh promises, tenders and deadlines. And each year, nothing changes. This year is no different.
In the Assembly, Ports Minister Aleixo Sequeira claimed that a new dredging contract has been floated, promising that work at the river mouth will be done before October. Fisheries Minister Nilkanth Halarnkar too stepped in, announcing that jetty repairs will commence soon and that a ₹40 crore expansion proposal has been sent to the Centre.
But at Chapora, hope is not easily rekindled. “They’ve said all this before,” said Malvankar. “Until we see the dredgers in the river and real repairs on the jetty, we won’t believe a word of it,” he added.
For now, Chapora’s fishermen wait – not with optimism, but with resignation. Their boats are moored. Their hands are idle. Their futures, uncertain. And as the rest of Goa celebrates the beginning of another fishing season, Chapora drifts further into silence – abandoned, unheard and left behind.
