Fisheries Industry

roduction

Newly initiated development projects in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in post-war Sri Lanka are expected to open new avenues towards ethnic reconciliation, as proclaimed not only by government media but also by the mainstream development scholarship. However, this popular perception about opening up new avenues for reconciliation through development seems to foreclose certain barriers and obstructions existing within the so called development highway itself, especially with regard to ethnic minorities. To understand the possible political and other forms of repercussion of the currently existing development-community encounter, one should turn one’s ears not only to the subject-agents of the development discourse but also to those who are subjected to the development industry, considering the fact that the subalterns also are involved in creating meanings (or counter-articulate the dominant discourse, as Laclauian discourse analysts would suggest) in their own way. This piece explores the ways in which the local communities in the Northern fishing villages receive the messages enunciated by the dominant or official discourse of development and counter-articulate meanings in a different, competing manner and the ways in which this community-development encounter would affect the wider problem of post-war ethnic and social reconciliation.

Jaffna’s fishing industry

The Fishing industry, being one of the main sources of livelihood of a large number of people in the Jaffna Peninsula, happens to be a sector that was severely affected by the thirty years ethnic civil war. Before the war, Jaffna was the largest fishing production district and contributed about 48,000 metric tons per year comprising almost one fourth of the total production of the country. However, this significantly developed fishing industry was severely affected by the war. “While the Jaffna District alone provided 20-25% of the total fish production in Sri Lanka before 1983, its contribution was reduced to 3-5% by the end of the third Eelam war.” The annual fish production in the District numbered around 2000 metric tons during the war. Although this got recovered to some extent in two years after the war, it is far from pre-war levels.

Fisheries District	No of Fisheries Inspectors (FI) Divisions	Number of Boats						Number of Active Fishermen	Number of Fishing     Families
		IMUL	IDAY	OFRP	MTRB	NTRB	NBSB
Colombo	10	59	28	260	0	311	20	1711	1442
Kalutara	9	375	5	403	0	418	26	5366	3477
Galle	9	408	38	539	382	399	59	10956	6980
Matara	9	1026	118	742	228	767	10	13950	13600
Tangalle	12	535	31	929	131	920	124	9435	7899
Kalmunai	12	40	184	651	222	1027	161	18324	17316
Batticaloa	16	328	88	997	3	3430	164	25726	2076
Trincomalle	11	154	65	3230	4	3000	166	25905	17861
Mullathivu	4	0	0	490	1	34	4	2327	1821
Killinochchi	5	0	0	507	15	206	0	4210	4200
Jaffna	14	22	183	2926	500	3559	97	21243	20221
Mannar	6	9	87	1717	185	580	28	10650	8282
Puttalam	8	85	0	2626	164	1536	222	11514	9467
Mahawewa	11	414	0	1950	2	1525	29	10803	7186
Negombo	13	403	126	1742	5	1773	32	8573	7918
Total	149	3858	953	19709	1842	19485	1142	180693	129746
IMUL			= Over 28FT Long Multi-day Boats
I DAY			= 28ft Long, 3.5 ton one-day Boats
OFRP			= Fiber-glass reinforced Boats with out board Motors
MTRB			= Machanized Traditional Fishing Crafts
NTRB			= Non- Machanized Traditional Fishing Crafts
NBSB			= Beach seine craft

Point Pedro jetty back for fishermen

Boosting the economy of fishing industry in Jaffna the historical Point Pedro (PPD) jetty was vested to fisher folks on 19 August 2012 by the Army. This jetty remained a restricted area for many years due to the LTTE activities prevailed in the area.At a simple ceremony organized by the 521 Brigade of PPD in association with fishery societies in the area, Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprises Development Mr. Douglass Devananda and Commander Security Forces - Jaffna marked this historical occasion by cutting a ribbon at the entrance to the jetty.

The PPD jetty was constructed during the British rule in 1875 to facilitate sea transportation through the PPD harbor, then known as "Revueady", as the Dutch named it. Its normal functions were restricted on security grounds in May 1985 as terrorists activities evolved in the peninsula.

The jetty had been used by the LTTE since 1990 until the Army took its control after defeating the terrorist movements in the area in 1996.

LTTE ක්‍රියාකාරකම් නිසා  යාපනයේ පේදුරුතුඩුව  ජැටිය ධීවර ජනයාට ඇතුළුවීම සීමා කර තිබුනා. එහෙත් ශ්‍රී ලංකා යුද හමුදාව විසින් යාපනය දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ මත්ස්‍ය කර්මාන්තයේ ආර්ථික අභිවුර්දිය සඳහා 2012 අගෝස්තු 19 වනදා පේදුරු තුඩු ජැටිය නැවතත්  ජනතා අයිතියට පත්කර දුන්නා.