Hook, line and sinking: How big infra is impacting Mumbai's fisherfolk

PM Modi laid the foundation for India's largest sea port at Vadhavan, amid fisherfolk opposition due to significant drops in fish catch from coastal projects

After land, the sea is the frontier. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for India’s largest sea port at Vadhavan, which will be built by reclaiming 4,000 acres from the sea.

Tidal flow and turbidity are the two factors the fisherfolk on the Thane creek have also blamed for the drop in fish catch on the MTHL (AP)

The port marks the third-largest infrastructure project in and around Mumbai that is built along the coast line. In January, the 16.5-kilometre-long Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) was inaugurated, while phase 1 of the coastal road that cuts travel time between Worli and Marine Drive to under 10 minutes through bridges and an undersea tunnel was inaugurated in March.

What ties these seemingly disparate development projects together, all of them aimed at easing traffic, connecting the island city to the mainland and establishing a global port, is the staunch opposition they have faced by the fisherfolk—the most affected by the encroachment into their territory.

This month, 1,210 traditional fishers from seven Navi Mumbai villages -- Vashigaon, Juhugaon, Koparkhairane, Ghansoli, Gothivali, Diva and Belapur -- filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court asking for compensation, claiming there had been a 60% drop in fish catch due to the MTHL.

Stalin said the catch is affected not because of the construction alone. “The constant whizz of vehicles speeding past makes the pillars vibrate,” he added. “It causes a whirlpool of water around the pillars, disturbing the fish and substratum around it, increasing turbidity levels. The fish are repelled.”

Tidal flow and turbidity are the two factors the fisherfolk on the Thane creek have also blamed for the drop in fish catch on the MTHL. This was foreseen, they said.

“We had raised objection to the project right from the beginning,” said Sutar, head of the fishers’ organisation. “MMRDA had even acknowledged the effect it would have, and in a survey the fisheries department had identified 1,470 fisherfolk from 11 Navi Mumbai villages including ours which would be impacted. While MMRDA called for a re-survey in 2019, the list was pared down to 1,226 fisherfolk from 10 villages,” he complained. An MMRDA official refused to comment, saying the matter was sub judice.

With the MTHL now a done deal, the fishers are now wrangling for the next best possible thing—proper compensation. The loss is not only to their livelihoods, but to the wealth of cultural knowledge they carry as the original inhabitants of Mumbai, going back four centuries, when it was a disparate collection of islands.

“The only way to reach Vashigaon was by boat. Now, it is cars that have the priority. And we, who have been fishermen over generations, are being forced to turn to other means to make a livelihood,” said Sutar.

A not dissimilar story played out with the fisherfolk in the island city when the Mumbai Coastal Road was built. A Tata Institute of Social Science report dated February 2023, estimates a 50% drop in the income and catch of the fisherfolk who live at Worli Koliwada and Lotus Jetty. Those who catch fish by hand (primarily women) using cast-nets were found to be most affected.

Shoreline fishing is on the verge of extinction due to the reclamation of the seashore for developmental projects, said the report. “The small fish species handpicked by the fisherfolks live on the small rocks and craggy seabed, and the holes get filled with waste construction material dredging down into the sea,” said the report. Consequently, the daily catch of non-mechanised boat owners fell from 14 kg per day before October 2018 to 7 kg in the aftermath of the project. The catch by the largest six-cylinder boats capable of venturing further away also reduced from 716 kg to 613 kg per day.

Small-scale local fishermen feel the brunt of the impact. “Majority of the fish Mumbai consumes doesn’t come from fishing in the near coast, but from deep-sea trawlers that disturb the sea bed and marine habitats,” said Thomas Zacharias, chef and founder of The Locavore, a platform that champions local and seasonal food. “This further affects the catch found by small-scale local fishers, who resort to buying fish at auctions at Sassoon Docks and the like from the trawlers and resell them at the koliwadas. Consumers are left not knowing what’s fresh and local and what is otherwise.”

What eventually worked in favour of the Worli koliwada fishers was politics. The four-year deadlock between the BMC and the kolis broke after the Eknath Shinde government took over. It gave in to the fisherfolk’s demand of increasing the space between the pillars of the coastal road to let the boats pass through. A redesign was ordered, increasing the space between the pillars from 60m to 120m in December 2022. Additionally, around 500 boat owners were paid between ₹1.5 lakh and ₹4.5 lakh per year during the period of the construction to compensate for their loss of business.

“Politics has always betrayed fishermen. The MVA government would have increased the space between the pillars eventually, but they were misled by bureaucrats in the government. When the Shinde government came to power, they thought increasing the gap between the pillars was the best way to win some brownie points with the community,” said Stalin.

He rues that a large percentage of the fisherfolk that is uneducated can be gullible. “All the politicians need to do is manage a few of their leaders, stand in for a few photos and make some promises, and their vote is theirs.”

With the next phase of the coastal road, from Bandra to Versova, going apace, more koli villages along the coast, including Versova, Chimbai, Khar Danda, will be impacted.

Maharashtra has dropped to fifth position among states in terms of fish production, according to data from the fisheries department. In inland fishing production, the state slipped from seventh to 17th, while in marine production it slipped from the third to sixth. In total, production fell from 6.63 lakh metric tonnes in 2016-17 to 5.9 lakh metric tonnes in 2022-23.

The effect on fish catch is incontestable. But a host of other factors have led the marine biodiversity in our waters to shrink, including sewage, effluents from industries, oil barges, rising temperatures due to climate change to name a few.

Construction of the Vadhavan port will now steamroll ahead, overriding the concerns of whole-scale damage flagged by the Vadhavan Bandar Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti on fishers, farmers and the environment. The live conches, corals, mangroves and moss are prime estate for fish seedings, and the damage to them will ripple far out.