Paper Title: Socio-Economic Conditions of Fishermen in Sundarbans: Overview in Post Pandemic Situation
Author:
Abstract:
The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world located in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers in West Bengal, India. Fishing is a major livelihood in the region along with wage labour, agriculture, and crab and prawn seed collection. Fishing is a seasonal occupation for communities in this area. The cultural belief systems and myths of traditional communities in the Sundarbans are dedicated to a deep respect for nature. This particular paper focuses mainly on two distinct areas of Sundarbans, Kakdwip and Gosaba Community Development Block, the Canning Subdivision of South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Fishing communities live in harsh conditions as most of their villages are in remote areas with minimal or no access to basic nutritional, sanitation, education and health facilities. As it is a seasonal occupation, for the rest of the year they remain unemployed. The fishing community mostly remain unemployed or with very minimum wages. In general, and in those unemployed times they live in extreme poverty and malnutrition. Women have lost their sources of livelihood as they are prohibited from fishing. Situations got harsher after the pandemic COVID-19. The noble corona virus left all the sections of society with utmost poverty and unemployment. Fishing communities in these two blocks are not out of the group. The effect of the global pandemic condition due to the Covid-19 lockdown has a significant impact on the socio-economic scenario of the Indian Sundarbans region. Due to the unavailability of transport facilities, the domestic workers are also unable to join their work in the urban areas. This livelihood is dependent on the tidal conditions which are not always coinciding with the stipulated local market timings where they can sell their catch locally, thereby dampening the impetus to go for fishing. The local market is also not a profitable place to sell the catch since the people visiting these local markets have ponds with fish within their homestead lands, and they seldom buy fish from these markets. This year all these processes could not be carried out, thereby affecting the fish farmers and this will have impacts on fish availability and the consequent fish prices in the future. Apart from all these issues, these regions are at a high risk of cyclones. As Kakdwip and Gosaba both are cyclone prone areas. Natural calamities devastated these two districts causing similar damage. The collapse of infrastructure related to health and nutrition programs due to the cyclone may lead to an adverse effect on the nutritional status of thousands of children in this region. In the phase of disaster recovery and mitigation, there needs to be a special focus on this issue through strong interventions. In a nutshell, we will discuss about the impact of COVID-19 on the social economic status of fishermen of the Sundarbans.
Keywords:Mangrove, malnutrition, Kakdwip, Gosaba, cyclone.
DOI Link – https://doi.org/10.63431/AIJITR/3.I.2026.1-8
Review By – Dr. Parimal Sarkar and Dr. Amit Adhikari