Angul: Ban on fishing in the Mahanadi-Satkosia gorge to ensure the safety of gharial crocodiles has come under Odisha Human Rights Commission's (OHRC) scanner. The panel has asked the principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife) to furnish a compliance report on whether any fishing-related crocodile death has been reported in the gorge.

Rights activists had sought the OHRC's intervention and maintained that the fishing prohibition was arbitrary and adversely affected the livelihood of traditional inland fishermen in Angul, Dhankanal and Cuttack districts.

The forest department banned fishing in the gorge in March 2015 claiming that that gharials were dying after getting entangled in fishing nets. However, no case of crocodile death due to fishing has come to light in the Satakosia Gorge Sanctuary, the petition moved by Sangita Swain, secretary, Human Rights Watch, said.

The forest department, replying to an RTI query, has admitted that no gharial died due to net-entanglement. Around 5,000 fishermen from Cuttack, Angul, Boudh and Nayagarh earned their livelihood by fishing in the gorge. Following the ban, these fishermen are in dire straits. Deprived of alternate sources of income, they are on the verge of starvation, the petition said.

The forest department is insensitive towards the fishermen's plight. No measure to rehabilitate them has been undertaken by the authorities concerned, it said.

Gharials, considered a critically endangered species, survive on fish.