Odisha: Steps to protect habitats of Olive Ridleys at river mouths

The court was hearing a PIL it had registered suo motu on the high mortality rate of Olive Ridley turtles on the Odisha coast.
Olive Ridleys
Olive Ridleys

CUTTACK: The State fisheries department on Tuesday informed the Orissa High Court that steps have been taken to install marking buoys to demarcate no fishing zone at the Devi river mouth and Rushikulya river mouth. Both the river mouths are important nesting sites for the endangered Olive Ridley turtles, next to Gahirmatha. The court was hearing a PIL it had registered suo motu on the high mortality rate of Olive Ridley turtles on the Odisha coast.

In an affidavit, deputy director Fisheries (Marine) Basanta Kumar Dash said, “In order to demarcate the fishing zone of Devi River mouth eleven marking buoys have already been installed. Similarly, fabrication of eleven marking buoys have been completed and would be installed at the earliest for demarcation of the no fishing zone at the Rushikulya river mouth.”

Dash also said that the Fisher-friendly mobile application (FFMA) with geo-coordinates of ‘No Fishing Zone’ have been introduced by the State government for use by fishermen to get alert prior movement of their boats into the restricted zone.

As for procurement of transponders which would be installed in mechanized fishing vessels and trawlers, fresh tender has been floated on April 18 as no bids were received to tender issued on December 10, 2021, Dash also said in his affidavit.He said the request for proposal (RFP) for procurement of transponders prepared by the Directorate of Fisheries was vetted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

There are 1740 mechanised fishing vessels in the State. The State government had planned to procure transponders from ISRO empanelled vendors in two phases over a period of two years - 1000 in 2021-22 and the rest 740 in 2022-23. But the procurement process has made no headway so far as none of ISRO empanelled vendors had responded to the tender so far.The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik fixed July 12 as the next date for taking stock of the measures taken for the protection of the Olive Ridley turtles.

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