India’s deep-sea fishing ambitions are floundering

This story is the first in a series on deep-sea fishing in India, produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network. The first story examines India’s Deep Sea Fishing Vessel Scheme and finds a mismatch between its ambitions and the realities of fishing.

Shaju Antony, a traditional fisherman from Kerala, was encouraged by his parish priest to apply for a government scheme in 2020 that provided financial assistance for deep-sea fishing vessels. He gathered about Rs 72 lakh for his part of the contribution for a boat under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, a central government scheme.

He received the boat three years later, in December 2023. But the boat started showing signs of trouble as soon as he started using it. Antony and his crew spent another Rs 30 lakh repairing the boat. Finally, after months of sending petitions to the state government to look into the matter, he gave up. “If they are building boats for fishermen, why aren’t they consulting the fishermen?” he asks.

About 1,500 km further up, on the west coast of India, Kiran Koli, a traditional fisherman and leader of a fishers’ union from Maharashtra, had also applied for the same government scheme in 2017-’18 when it...

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