Fish worth Rs 10 lakh thrown to waste by Goa officials

• Fish forcefully discarded | Once again dispute with fish from the state

Kundapur: The confusion between the fishermen of Goa and Karnataka is not showing any signs of resolving. Reportedly on Sunday, a truck carrying fish from Karwar with permission at Goan border was stopped by Goan officials who then proceeded to thrown the Rs 10 lakh worth of fish weighing almost 1.5 tonnes into the garbage box of Panaji Corporation.

The Goan government has now once again created a dispute in connection to the fish being transported to Goa from Karavali and Uttara Kannada and du to this, a problem has again been created to the transport of fish to Goa state.

The fish belonging to Ramanna from Karavali was being transported in an insulated vehicle after getting the required approval from the FDA as well as the Goan Food Department and was proceeding towards Atlas Company in Panaji when it was forcefully waylaid. Though the Food Department officials took samples to Atlas Company’s lab, kept it for two days, tested it for formalin and got negative results, yet they did not release the vehicle and instead simply chose to discard the Rs 10 lakh worth of fish into the garbage bin of the corporation.

Stepmother attitude

Goa does not cause any problems to the fish arriving from the states of Maharashtra and Andhra, but for fish vehicles from Karnataka are purposefully stopped for more than an-hour-and-a-half. Thus Goa is showing as stepmother attitude by allowing fishes from other states. But our government has failed to take this seriously and is at ease, allege the fishermen f Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada districts.

No transportation of fish itself

After the incident of not only stopping a fish vehicle for hours together, but also seizure of the goods even after provision of relevant documents and permissions, the fishermen from Kaup, Karwar and Mangaluru are now hesitant to transport their fish towards Goa.

They begged, but were not allowed

Though there is no formalin we have received order from the Health Minister. Therefore we are discarding the fish into the garbage bin, informed the officials to the vehicle driver and the owner of the fishes Ramanna. During that time, no matter how hard they begged to not to discard the fish but instead allow them to take it back to the state, the officials simply did not agree and instead force the driver of the vehicle itself to throw out the 1.5 tonnes of fish into waste, informs Uttara Kannada Meenugarara Vyaparasthara Abhivradhi Sangha’s secretary Praveen with ‘Udayavani’.