A row of countryboats

Guwahati, June 1: When Bhupen Hazarika sang ?Porohipuwate, tulunga nawote, Rongmon macholoi gol?, it struck a chord in Assam?s large fishing community. Though the balladeer did not explicitly mention Rongmon?s fate, it was implied that he drowned while trying to steer his tiny wooden boat through the stormy waters of the Brahmaputra.

Hazarika?s protagonist may have been fictional, but hundreds of real Rongmons risk their lives daily when venturing out into the Brahmaputra on boats old and unfit for the mighty river during the monsoon.

Bringing in modern technology to traditional fishing, experts from the Cochin-based Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT) is training local boat-builders on how to make sturdier boats with fibreglass.

The project, appropriately called Transfer of Technology, is the brainchild of the department of fisheries.

Led by a principal scientist, a 25-member CIFT team is training the group of 10 boat-builders at Min Bhawan in Guwahati.

Officer-in-charge (training) Ramananda Bora said the basic objective of the programme was to popularise the use of fibreglass boats in Assam, which are more convenient and definitely safer and longer lasting than the traditional wooden ones.

?If you forget the expenditure, which is on the higher side, fibreglass boats have many advantages over wooden boats. They are lightweight, durable and do not require much maintenance,? Bora said.

The trainees are being shown specifically how to make fibreglass boats based on the traditional designs popular in Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya.

?Boats used in each of these states are quite different from one another. The participants are being taught how to make the moulds of different designs,? the fisheries department official said.

The three-month training programme will end on June 10. One of the trainees, Khitish Das, said the workshop had been worth the effort so far. ?We have all benefited from the programme. We now know how to prepare the moulds and make boats out of fibreglass.?

Another participant, Gopal Chandra Patowary, said the only problem was the unavailability of the required materials in the region. ?Despite this constraint, I am convinced that fibreglass boats will be used extensively in Assam.?