International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.28, 1-8
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3.6 Human assets
The human assets of fishermen were assessed in terms
of gender ratio, migration, food security, health,
education and occupation. With regard to gender ratio,
there was no much disparity among the three categories
as it being a demographic factor and it was around 890.
Migration to cities was present only in serious affected
category with 10.00 per cent due to high pollution and
consequent drop in fish income in that category. Food
expenditure and health expenditure was highest for
serious affected category with 86.16 and 24.10
thousands of rupees respectively. There was no much
difference among literacy rate between the three
categories and it was around 70-75 per cent.
Occupational analyses indicated that other occupations
like bus driving, casual labour and shop keeping apart
from fisheries dominated the scene in low affected
fishermen with 30.00 per cent; 25.00 per cent for
medium affected fishermen and 12.50 per cent for low
affected fishermen.
3.7 Social assets
Social assets were assessed in terms of family size,
participation in village meeting and exposure to mass
media. Family size was almost similar between
categories and it was around 4-5 members.
Participation in village meeting and exposure to mass
media was varied with pollution intensity and it was
highest for serious affected category with seven and
five respectively
3.8 Financial assets
Financial asset was examined by the saving and credit
position of the three categories of affected fishermen.
With regard to saving, it was highest for low affected
fishermen with Rs. 382350 and it was higher over
medium affected fishermen by 154.86 per cent and
was higher
over serious affected fishermen by 178.96 per cent.
Thus the savings varied with pollution intensity.
Among different sources of saving, the investment on
land occupied the highest among all categories. Jewels
formed the next source and savings by cash formed
the last source which showed that savings by sample
fishermen are less liquid.
The formal credit borrowed by serious affected
fishermen was 10.00 per cent with an average amount
of 13000 and there was no formal credit borrowing
in medium and low affected categories. The informal
credit borrowing was ranged with pollution intensity
and it was highest for serious affected category with a
proportion of 57.50 per cent with an average amount of
161 thousands of rupees.
4 Conclusions
The variable cost, fixed cost, total cost, gross income
and net income was varied with pollution intensity. The
resource use efficiency analyses revealed that fish
catch was positively influenced by the inputs of fish
production namely fuel cost, human labour and
maintenance cost for all the three categories of affected
fishermen. The mean technical efficiency and scale
efficiency of total fish production of all the three
categories of serious, medium and low affected
fishermen was similar and was around 99 per cent.
Contingent valuation exercise revealed that WTP was
varied with pollution intensity and it was highest for
seriously affected category with Rs. 5850 per annum.
Assessment of sustainability through sustainable rural
livelihood framework under five capital assets
revealed that low affected fishermen was more
sustainable followed by medium and low affected
fishermen as the fisheries level efficiency were
transformed into different assets creation.
Policy implications
The production function analyses revealed that
fuel cost and human labour positively and significantly
influenced the fish catch and hence the State
Government should supply the fuel at free of cost to the
fishermen. The Government should also initiate
schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee
scheme to enhance the human resource potential in fish
production.
The technical efficiency of
Sardinella longiceps
was lower
and
Rastriller kanagurta
was much lower
and hence the extension efforts by the Fisheries
Department to popularise the frontier technologies to
achieve the highest technical efficiency is the need of
the hour.
The contingent valuation technique employed in
the study revealed the damage of the seriously
affected fishermen was at Rs.5850 per annum,
Rs.3576 per annum for moderately affected fishermen
and Rs.1191 per annum for low affected fishermen.
