Power crisis takes a toll on fishermen in coastal Karnataka as ice production hits an all-time low

They sell low-value catch at extremely low prices, while a good portion of high-value catch goes to fishmeal factories instead of processing units due to ice shortage Mangaluru/Udupi/Uttara Kannada: Power crisis has cast a shadow on the fishermen in the coastal areas of Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka. The success of the fisheries sector depends on the freshness of the catch, for which ice is crucial. Though the power crisis affects the entire state, outages appear to be more virulent in these coastal areas as except for one power plant, all others are located outside these districts.This year, the problem has been acute due to the fall in production and inequitable distribution of power. A common saying is that whenever Bengaluru falls short of power, the coastal districts bear the brunt. However, according to the Mangalore Electricity Supply Company, the coastal districts are affected first during shortage due to the wheeling problems. “In the recent times, outages and wide-ranging voltage fluctuations have been controlled by load adjusting techniques and by improving the quality of regulators, transformers and even high voltage cables, but the shutdowns cannot be regulated beyond certain levels as the power will have to be shared equally in all parts of the state,” it said.Since the onset of the power crisis in August, ice plants in the coastal regions are operating at just 30% of their capacity. For instance, a 150-tonne ice plant now produces a mere 45 tonnes daily. “As a result, fishermen along the coast are selling low-value varieties such as mackerel, sardine and pink perch at very low prices,” Harish Salian, a member of the Karavali Meenugarara Kriya Samithi, attested.  Incidentally, the western coast saw a record catch of oil sardines this year, but half of it went to fishmeal factories instead of value-added processing units. If left without ice for a certain period, sardines start to release their oil, rich in Omega-3. With the nutritional value gone, the Omega-3 oil manufacturers refuse to buy them. This forces the fishermen cooperatives to put the catch out in the market at Rs 100 to 120 per kg, against the Rs 160 to 180 they receive at the value addition point.Mackerels are usually sent to the processing plants in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri for value addition. However, if ice is not available at the time of loading them onto trucks, then fishermen have no option but to sell the catch locally at a price that is about 60% less what a processing plant would have offered. The missed opportunity prevents these low value fish from being transformed into high value, ready-to-eat dishes for both domestic and export markets. Upcountry markets such as Bengaluru and Mysuru are also deprived of these sought-after fish varieties from Mangaluru and its surroundings. Vasanth Tandel, a fishmeal producer from Bhatkal, told 101Reporters that the fish wasted or spoiled due to lack of ice reached the fishmeal factories. “We have been getting more stocks due to ice shortage, lack of proper storage and damage during unloading. This was evident from the beginning of the season [August-September] and the end of the season [May-June, depending on the onset of the south-westerly monsoons] since 2021-22. So far, fishmeal factories have been flooded with waste fish. We survive by producing nutrient pellets for shrimp farms, which needs comparatively less power,” Vasanth said.If left without ice for a certain period, sardines start to release their oil (Photo - M Raghuram, 101Reporters)Melting pointOver 14 lakh fishermen community members (Mogaveeras in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada; Tandels, Vaidyas and Harikantras in Uttara Kannada) live in the three coastal districts. A total of 6,800 vessels, including purse seines, longliners, trawlers and coastal catamarans, are manned by 4.5 lakh seafaring fishermen and supported by a total of 2.5 lakh loaders, handlers, segregators, auctioneers and vendors. About 15% of the youth in the community have white-collar jobs, while 20% are into fish value addition, processing, exports and management.Power crisis has affected half of the total 165 ice plants on the coast. According to the Karnataka Coastal Ice Plant and Cold Storage Owners' Association, there are 63 ice plants in Dakshina Kannada district and 67 in Udupi district, with a total daily ice production capacity of 2,200 tonnes. Right now, they produce only 1,900 tonnes."A few hours of power outage in a production day should be made up the next day. When there is no power or quality power available for four hours in a day, we try to recover the lost hours of production the next day. In less than a week, we lose 24 to 32 hours, which is the loss of a day’s production,” Sanjiv Kundar, an office-bearer of Karavali Ice Plant Owners’ Cooperative, told 101Reporters.A minimum of six hours of uninterrupted power supply is needed to make an ice block weighing 10 kg, for which production cost is Rs 30 against the selling price of Rs 50. As for a 50 kg ice block, the selling price is Rs 250 against the production cost of Rs 175. Similarly, it takes Rs 300 to make a 100 kg block against the Rs 400 it fetches when sold. Using a diesel generator is not financially viable due to the thin profit margin. Like ice plants, crusher units also need a stable power supply to function. Each ice plant requires an investment of Rs 35 to 50 lakh. It can go up to Rs 1 crore, if inverter technology is used. “To break even, the plants must operate without any issues for at least five years,” said Uday Karkera, an ice plant owner in Udupi."Ice shortage has affected the processing units as well. Some of the export houses have their own ice plants that they run on diesel generators. But then, their overheads go up substantially and bring down profit margins," Mohan Bengre, director, Dakshina Kannada Ice Plants Cooperative Society, told 101Reporters.“The 2021-22 fiscal was good for us. We were able to not only hold onto full production, but also meet the demand of 2,200 tonnes per day. Exporters often purchased ice from us at higher rates," said Kundar.According to fishermen leaders, small fishermen groupings cannot afford to use diesel generators for producing ice. Even the cooperative societies are not in a position to run their ice factories on generators. Power crisis has cast a shadow on the fishermen in the coastal areas (Photo - M Raghuram, 101Reporters)Hygiene matters the mostAround 80,000 tonnes of fish is captured in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts annually. Of this, 30% is exported to Europe, the Middle East and south eastern countries. Only high-value varieties such as cuttlefish, kingfish, seer fish, white pomfret, ribbonfish, some types of perches and anchovies, tiger prawns and jumbo shrimps are exported.  Prakash Tandel, a fisherman from Karwar, told 101Reporters that the code of practice for fish and fishery products specifies hygienic handling, necessitating immediate icing of freshly caught fish. Inconsistent power supply results in non-uniform ice formation, allowing microbes to thrive in the water and contaminate the fish.Only the fish export houses are getting quality ice as they pay higher prices. The local fish transporters, vending houses and storage units get second grade ice, which has low density and melts faster, giving no shelf value to the catch. According to the scientists at the Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University’s composite college in Mangaluru, once the microbe activities begin in fish, it cannot be completely cleared by any procedure. The microbes will persist even in the processed product.Speaking to 101Reporters on condition of anonymity, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute scientists said the governments should keep in mind the fact that the US and European Union markets are very particular that the fish products imported from any part of the world should be free of all pathogens pre and post processing.Marine Products Exports Development Authority reiterated the importance of ice inputs to the fresh fish catch at the first point of capture. Ice must be produced abundantly and carried by fishing vessels, especially those remaining in sea for days together, it said. The officials at the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology highlighted the quality of ice used. Since the reefer cargo takes a long time to reach its domestic/foreign destination, the quality and quantity of the ice used become important.  Edited by Rekha PulinnoliCover Photo - A glimpse of boats and fishermen on the shore (Photo - M Raghuram, 101Reporters)

How Dakshina Kannada’s fisherfolk coped with the lockdown

While fishers in the region were compelled to bypass the market systems and directly reach consumers, they also discovered new avenues of cooperation.  Mangaluru: Jayanti Karkera has a designated spot in the Urva market of Mangalore but during the lockdown, it mostly lay empty. She and many others of her ilk were more likely to be found at the street corners in residential areas, far removed from their ‘comfort zone’ trying to take their product directly to consumers. “We have a well-developed market system, but the stress on the system is so much that we were constrained to break away from it. With customers finding it hard to come to the market, it had become extremely competitive,” she said. “If we weren't able to sell in the three hours that the market was open, we were constrained to give them up at throwaway prices. We also had to battle the short shelf life of our catch. We are day sellers and do not have storage facilities. Of course, we have iceboxes but because many ice factories were closed and we were not able to get ice as and when we wanted to,” said Dayanand Bangera, a boat owner in Malpe in Udupi. The community had appealed to the Mangalore City Corporation and to the Police authorities to allow these makeshift fish vending places to operate until the lockdown was relaxed. Similar appeals were made in Udupi, Kundapur, Bhatkal, Honnavar, Kumta, and Karwar and the authorities had by and large consented. During normal times this would not have been allowed. “There are 612 designated markets in the three districts with over 14,000 people — vendors, suppliers and cleaners — working there, but during the pandemic, the number of fishers using the official markets had halved. This was due to the time factor, there was only a three-hour window to bring the catch to the market, sell it and get back to the safety of their homes. This disrupted the market operations,” said Nithin Kumar, Chairman of the Karnataka Fisheries Development Corporation (KFDC). Karnataka Fish Marketing Federation’s president, Yashpal Suvarna, pointed out, “Since the input cost of fishing expeditions had gone up by 30 per cent due to the escalation of fuel (diesel) prices, many boat owners had suspended operations. Deep-sea expeditions that used to cost Rs 3-4 lakhs in total, had started costing Rs 5 lakhs for fuel alone. Other costs like ice, crew salaries, landing charges, insurance, maintenance of vessel and nets and other machinery would jack up the cost to Rs 7 lakh per trip. But the cost at the consumer end remained the same and this is where the marketing became tough. Fisherfolk had to work on wafer-thin returns.” Deep down, in the fishing villages, circumstances were changing drastically. In Meenakaliya village in Baikampady in Mangalore, Sudhakar Salian (50) had owned his own boat until February 2020 when the pandemic struck. Now he and his son, Rajiv, work as labourers in his cousin’s boat. “All the labourers I had in my boat were Tamilians. When the pandemic started, many of them left, and it was not possible to get local labour to work on my boat. I couldn’t allow the boat to remain idle either because I had bank loans, insurance and tax. I was reduced from a boat owner to a labourer in less than one year,” he said. Fish on wheels: Fishers had taken to selling their catch out of trucks in various neighbourhoods in Mangaluru (Picture credit: M Raghuram)Padukere, near Udupi, which is the busiest fishing village near the Malpe fishing port, had gone quiet. “This port is one of the three big fishing ports on the West Coast, with over 780 mechanised boats operating from it. Nearly 1.2 lakh fishermen work from here. Thanks to the government’s structured lockdown, we were at least able to move our catch from Malpe to the more interior places of the district, as well as neighbouring Chikkamagaluru and Shivamogga districts, which is the only silver lining during the pandemic,” according to a fisher in Padukere. However, the fisherfolk in Uttara Kannada district adapted better, according to Karnataka fisheries department officials. The number of mechanised boats is fewer here than in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi; the boats here, called the Naadadoni, are 10- metre-long open boats used for coastline fishing. Besides, the coastline here is abutted with towns and villages that have high volumes of consumers. But areas further up the ghat, like Sirsi, Joida, Siddapur, remained difficult to reach due to movement restrictions, said Prakash Tandel, a fisher from Karwar. And on a positive note, fisher organisations across state lines were able to come together to ensure that the commercial value of their catch didn't crash. The Akhila Maharashtra Machimaar Kruti Samithi, Akhila Karnataka Meenugarara Kriya Samithi and their counterparts in Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat jointly appealed to the respective state governments to keep the trunk route open for the movement of fishery products, especially those bound for value addition and export. All the five states had coordinated their efforts to ensure smooth and seamless movement of catch on the interstate highways and national highways. Olencio Simeos, General Secretary of the National Fishworkers Federation (NFF) in Goa, told 101Reporters, "Though there was immense time pressure in transporting and storing the catch during the lockdown we were able to minimise wastage, mainly because the value addition companies and exporters stood beside us in support. They kept the transport and factories running and process chain functioning, which has helped us a lot""This has resulted in a new understanding between the five states in managing the fisheries catch in their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). The pandemic, in fact, has given us insights into the things that can be worked out mutually in the interest of fisheries as a whole," said Kiran Koli, General Secretary of the Kruti Samiti.

Patients say K’taka hospitals overcharging them in name of COVID-19

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in India, the government has been forced to rope in private hospitals to deal with the pandemic. However, several people complain that private hospitals are charging exorbitant amounts of money for treatment. Dinesh Adkar, a resident of Sullia in Dakshina Kannada district, received a bill of Rs 80,000 for his treatment at a private hospital in Mangaluru. He said that even though there is no specific medicine for COVID-19 and hospitals are just providing ventilator support and intravenous fluids, the charges are quite high. He alleged that many patients have also been unjustly treated for other conditions.“Coronavirus has become an instrument for the hospitals to tie up patients with different health conditions,” he said.“I just had to lie down in the bed for five days without doing much. I just had to eat, take rest, drink hot water and let the hospital staff take my readings, like blood pressure, blood oxygen content, pulse rate, twice a day. Though there was not much of medicine administration, I enquired with nursing attendants and found out there was vitamin and zinc tablets, yet my bill was Rs 33,000,” he added. Sharat Kumar, Dinesh’s cousin who accompanied him from Sullia to Mangaluru, was asked to get tested and admitted. He had a swab test and was kept in the ward for two days. He received a bill for Rs 22,000 and claimed that they just made him rest and gave him two jugs of water. Mohammad Haneef, a Hassan-based rights activist, was admitted to the government COVID-19 hospital for symptoms but was soon shifted to a private hospital with many other complications like hypertension, heart problems and diabetes. Haneef claimed that he never had any of them. In another case of inflated bills, Nanjundappa PS, 70, a resident of Chikkamagaluru, was treated by Ashraya Hospital where he was charged Rs 9.25 lakh for his treatment, which lasted 13 days. After he passed away, the hospital gave a discount of one rupee, his relatives claimed. His son-in-law Prasanna HO stated that though they aren’t wealthy, they were able to arrange for the money and pay the dues to the hospital. “During the various discussions on his health, the hospital authorities and medical experts gave us assurances that they will cure him and didn’t allow us to take him to another hospital,” he added. He said they have filed a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner about the overcharging by the hospital and the attitude of the authorities. However, Dr DL Vijay Kumar, medical director, Ashraya Hospital, Chikkamgaluru, stated otherwise. He told 101Reporters that Nanjundappa was admitted with severe COVID-19 pneumonia, had a blood oxygen level of 70% and several comorbidities such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and prostate issues.  When he was admitted, the relatives of the patient were explained that it would be difficult to revive him fully because of his age and other issues, but his relatives had full faith in us and they treated him with their best doctors in three to four shifts in the ICU, he underlined. He added that they also called for super-specialist doctors to treat him, in addition to spending Rs 15 lakh on procuring ventilators. He also condemned the actions of the relatives who, he said, are trying to blame the hospital, despite their best efforts. Scheme for COVID-19 patientsEven state health minister B Sriramulu had flagged the issue of overcharging by hospitals after he was quarantined in a private hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. The state government hasn’t asked much from the private hospitals so far, but since the government hospitals were full, the government was forced to ask for their help under the rates that were mutually beneficial to the patients and the hospitals, he told 101Reporters. If a district health officer refers a patient to a private hospital, it shouldn’t cost more than Rs 5,200 per day in a general ward; if there is a ventilator, it would cost Rs 8,800 in a private hospital, he informed. He added that charges for a day, under no circumstances, should cross Rs 10,000 as the Ayushman Bharat scheme has been extended to COVID-19 patients.  In Udupi and Manipal, all COVID-19 designated private hospitals are supposed to keep the patients in the ICU for not less than three days at Rs 25,000 per day before shifting them to COVID-19 wards under Ayushman Bharat scheme, he added. Some patients were retained in hospitals for 28 days in Udupi, but the longer they stay, the bigger the amount the hospital receives from the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, Sriramulu underlined. Authorities find discrepanciesIn Bengaluru, the SSNMC Super Speciality Hospital in Rajarajeshwari Nagar had to cough up nearly Rs 24 lakh that it had amassed by overcharging 13 patients in one week. D Roopa, the state home secretary, and senior IAS officer Harsha Gupta found irregularities in the management of the COVID-19 affairs and the hospital had to be given directions to convert 40 beds into government quota out of 120 beds which is the installed capacity of the hospital.A senior hospital administrator of the SSNMC hospital stated that the patients wanted single rooms with ventilators and few other exclusive facilities and expensive medicines, which was why the bills had swollen, but later after the government intervention, they refunded the money. In a series of tweets, D Roopa outlined the procedures involved in the charging of COVID-19 patients in private hospitals. Speaking to 101Reporters, Roopa mentioned that the Karnataka government has fixed limits of rates for charging COVID-19 patients. “To ensure this, Harsha Gupta and I, with our team, visited a hospital by surprise, spoke to admitted patients on phone and found discrepancies. The hospital [in question] has refunded the excess amount charged,” she added. She mentioned that they are authorised to take action against erring hospitals who overcharge patients, but in this case, they found that the hospital had refunded the money. “However I found that there were requests coming from other areas in Bengaluru and other parts of the state as well,” she added. Charged extraIn many private hospitals, they charge Rs 1,500-1,800 per PPE kit when it shouldn’t cost more than Rs 300-500. In Sharat's case, the hospital charged him Rs 1,500 per PPE kit and he was provided with eight kits in 24 hours. Sharat recalled that only a nurse had brought some water to his room and she was also not wearing a PPE kit. A Bengaluru-based PPE kit dealer, on the condition of anonymity, stated that he gets PPE kits from a Hyderabad-based company at two different rates, Rs 455 and Rs 300. He added that various hospitals get the PPE kits in bulk, bringing the price down to Rs 425 and Rs 285 respectively. Health department officials say that each patient is required to buy a PPE kit for two doctors and four nurses each day. This allows hospitals to ask the same amount of money from each patient even if they don’t provide the necessary equipment to their doctors or other workers.Oximeters, digital thermometers, sanitisers and even the equipment are charged to the patients. This has made private hospital treatment unaffordable for common people inflicted with COVID-19.