Scenes of fishermen pushing their country boats through Vembanad Lake and casting their nets wider on the water can be a perfect representation of countryside Kerala.
An inquiry with the Fisheries department, however, suggests that the fish wealth in the brackish water system has been under severe stress due to predatory fishing. Several people, mostly outsiders, are crowding together along the region to take advantage of the lucrative fish-breeding grounds here.
Taking a serious note of the issue, the Fisheries department has launched an extensive patrolling across the region that has resulted in seizure of several hundreds of banned fishing gears. The news of policing on the water, meanwhile, has created a deterrent effect among the illegal fishers for the time being.
