File picture of the fishing harbour in Paradip

Paradip, Aug. 21: The Odisha government has initiated measures to end the standoff between the marine fish producers and exporters.

The marine fishing units here have stopped commercial transaction with seafood exporters in protest against arbitrary price fixing.

The Odisha Marine Fish Producers Association has severed trading ties with the seafood exporters while alleging that the later was adopting “monopoly and manipulative practice”.

With the continuing deadlock, stakeholders of the local marine fisheries units are adversely affected, thus prompting the government to intervene. Nearly 50,000 stakeholders are bearing brunt of income loss following closure of the fishing harbour since yesterday. “We are acting as a mediating agency to end the dispute. Attempts are on convince both the sides to reach for an amicable settlement for the larger economic interest of the people. It’s a case of conflicting business interest between the state exporters and marine fish producers of Paradip. As livelihood sources of stakeholders such as trawl operators, crew, fish workers and ice-factory operators are getting affected, the marine fisheries department has intervened to settle the matter amicably,” assistant director (marine fisheries) Rabi Narayan Pattnaik said.

“The deadlock has arisen as the association has refused to sell their catch to the exporters against the price fixed by the Centre-run Marine Product Export Development Authority. The association is insistent on revised price of their produce. As the state seafood exporters’ union has stopped procuring fish at a higher price, the stalemate prevails. The trawl and vessel operators have suspended fishing, which has hit the fisheries related economy hard, ” said Pattnaik.

At present, the Paradip fishing harbour, one of the largest sea fish landing centres along the east coast, wears a deserted look. An estimated 3,500 metric tonnes of high-grade shrimps used to be exported mainly to European countries every year from here. The annual shrimp export turnover from the harbour is around Rs 150 crore, which accounts for over 40 per cent of the annual shrimp export from the state.

The crux of the dispute is that exporters refused to buy fish produce from the Paradip fishing harbour recently against the price fixed by the authority, a statutory body empowered to fix the catch price for export goods on a weekly basis. Both the exporters and fish producers were often abiding by the centrally-fixed price for the selling and buying process.

“We are sandwiched between the conflict of both the parties. We thrive on sea fishing. The deadlock is affecting us more than the trawl owners and exporters. There is no one to buy our catch,” said marine fisherman S. Rammanna.