Kolkata, Sep 1 (PTI) A forum of fishermen in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district has received a fresh letter from the state's environment department for a meeting after it claimed its members were being left out of the process to formulate an updated coastal zone management plan.

Fishermen were not informed of the date of the public hearing on the matter properly, though the problems of the coastal region could not be addressed without their presence, President of Dakshin Banga Matsyajibi Forum (DMF) Debasis Shyamal told PTI on Thursday.

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“The environment department did not intimate our organisation's Purba Medinipur unit about the public hearing on the coastal management plan, which took place on August 22. It is tantamount to leaving out one of the important stakeholders of the coastal belt,” Shyamal said.

Striking a balance between addressing livelihood concerns of the fishermen and protecting the ecology of the coastal region is needed, and the presence of the members of the Purba Medinipur Matsyajibi Forum (PMMF) was needed in that meeting, Shyamal said.

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The PMMF is under the DMF which is the state chapter of the National Platform for Small Scale Fishworkers, comprising fishermen of different coastal states.

Shyamal said the PMMF has drawn the attention of the state's department of environment and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board voicing its opposition to any attempt to not accommodate the views of the fishermen.

"We received a letter from the department of environment last night, promising to hold another hearing within a week. Our members were requested to attend it,” he said.

A top environment department official said that though many local fishermen had been present at the August 22 meeting, a fresh letter for a virtual hearing has been sent to the Purba Medinipur Matsyajibi Forum.

Senior officials will interact with the forum members and record their views, the official said.

Shyamal said attending the public hearing is important to address such anomalies as improper earmarking of fish landing centres in the district in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 2011 and 2019.

He said the DMF has 16,000 fishermen under its fold in the coastal districts of the state, including Purba Medinipur.

In a letter to the Purba Medinipur district magistrate, the forum said, "The Purba Medinipur Matsyajibi Forum is a body of small-time fishermen of the district, whose livelihood protection is central to the Coastal Regulation Zone, 2019 notification and the Coastal Zone Management Plans formulated under it.”

The PMMF said it has objections to the manner in which the fishermen were invited to provide their suggestions on the draft of the updated Coastal Zone Management Plan in the district.

A notice about the invitation was posted on the environment department's website and in some Bengali dailies but not local newspapers, Shyamal claimed, adding that it was not considered whether the fishermen of the district would be able to access those notices.

"We do not think it was accidental. There is a long-term plan to evict the fishermen living in the belt for centuries to carry out so-called beautification and development projects with the help of corporates.

“We warn against any such plan as that would harm the eco-system and lead to coastal destruction instead of protecting the coastal belt and marine and coastal eco-system," he said.

The environment department official said it would be wrong to presume that the department left out the fishermen's community.

"We had followed all well-established norms, like publishing the notice for hearing in more than one large circulated Bengali dailies apart from uploading the same on the website. If the forum members could not access the notice or were in the dark, it is unfortunate but we are not responsible,” he said.

A comprehensive coastal zone management plan addressing all issues is needed and it is not possible by excluding any stakeholder, the senior official said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)