Aqua Farmers Lobby Govt To Amend Crz Law

Even as the aqua farmers are mounting a strong lobby to force Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda to amend the coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) law, district collectors in Andhra Pradesh are going ahead with plans to dismantle and destroy the aqua farms violating the CRZ regulations within their jurisdiction.

There are around 1.20 lakh aqua farmers in the state engaged in shrimp culture over a 54,695 hectares of water. Around 100 small and big corporates are engaged in the business. Apart from this, there are 129 hatcheries, 35 feedmills and 48 processing plants.

Under the Supreme Court order, aqua ponds located within 500 metres of the CRZ should be demolished by March 31. The apex court has also directed that the concerned district collector should report to the court compliance of the directive by April 15. The collectors have been told they will be held responsible for non-compliance.

 

Aquaculture is mostly confined to six coastal districts, the most important of them being East Godavari, Krishna, Prakasam and Nellore. Corporates are mostly concentrated in Nellore, with a sprinkling of them in Visakhapatnam. If the courts orders are executed in letter and spirit, not a single aqua farm will be able to carry out viable operations.

In the wake of the imprisonment of an IAS officer of the Karnataka cadre for non-compliance of a court order, none of the collectors in Andhra want to take a chance with regard to implementing the orders.

The survey of the farms that will come under the purview of the Supreme Court directive is almost over. The next step is their dismantling, collectors of three coastal districts told Business Standard over the phone.

But some collectors, including those from Nellore and Krishna districts, have sought clarification from the state government on application of the orders on aqua units near creeks.

Krishna collector Chitra Ramachandran said the court directive was to demolish all ponds lying within 500 metres of the high tide line of the sea bay, creek, estuaries, rivers etc. by March 31. However, the CRZ for creeks has been set at 100 metres. Hence the need for clarification.

Nellore collector D Sambasiva Rao said the status of the Buckingam canal is also a matter of dispute. Most farms located by its side say the canal is man-made and is not a river. Hence the CRZ does not apply to it.

All the same, Rao said the detailed survey will be completed by the month-end after which demolition would begin. We still have a months time. We will go by the courts directive, he said.

Prakasam district collector D Srinivasulu said to avoid controversy, mandal-level committees have been formed to survey the shrimp farms coming within the CRZ. A representative from the aqua industry has been associated with these committees.

I hope the survey will be over in a weeks time. We shall decide on the next step by the middle of March, Srinivasulu said.

The collector said initial survey shows that none of the farmers have any installation within the 500 metre CRZ .It is mostly the corporate bodies that come within the zone.

The corporate bodies, which are going ahead with preparations like cleaning and ploughing the ponds for stocking when the season begins next month, feel confident that the Centre will find a way out of the impasse. Most of us started the ponds only after getting due permission from the Shore Area Devel-opment Authority of Andhra. Hence our farming is not illegal, a senior executive of a Nellore-based aqua company said.

Aqua farmers are also confident that the Centre will intervene. They feel an amendment to the CRZ notification of February 1991 will help them. The notification was issued under the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 and the rules framed thereunder. To seek executive intervention, a delegation of aqua farmers, led by Telugu Desam MP Subbarayudu and including former MP from Vijayawada Vadde Sobanadeeswara Rao will meet Deve Gowda on February 25.