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Plea to corporatise fishing harbours in Kerala

Our Bureau

KOCHI, Oct. 29

THE Kerala Seafood Exporters Association has appealed to the Kerala state government to corporatise its five main fishing harbours-Kochi, Munambam, Sakthikulangara, Beypore and Puthiyappa-to ensure quality at the landing centres.

A recent study by the Export Inspection Agency and the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) on the rejection of seafood shipments to the EU has found that contamination of the product started from the fishing vessel itself and more so at the landing centres and fishing harbours.

The quality chain from the fishing vessel, landing centre, pre- processing facility, factory, frozen storage and shipments is broken in the first two links of the chain, the association has pointed out. Most fishing vessels and trawlers observe no hygien e and there are no standards or inspection procedures to ensure that the vessels are kept clean to avoid product contamination. In the landing centres and fishing harbours, the catch is unloaded from the boats on to the floor for auctioning.

Stray cats and dogs freely roaming about in the fish landing sites and no pest or rodent control procedures is being followed at these sites. As a result, the raw material is contaminated at the first stage of the quality chain.

When the catch arrived in a contaminated condition at the processing centres, there was not much that the factory could do to process it into micro-biologically acceptable product fit for exports, the study pointed out.

According to the association, the only way to achieve zero-level rejection for failure to meet micro-biological standards is first by close monitoring of vessels and maintaining hygiene and upgrading the infrastructural facilities at the landing centres and fishing harbours.

The association suggested that these five harbours be brought under the management of an independent corporation with equity participation from MPEDA, the Seafood Exporters Association and the Trawler Owners Association with the Government holding a majo rity stake.

For finance, the association urged the Government to seek assistance from the Centre.