Mera Bharat Mahaan is a useless slogan for West Bengal's fishermen - they prefer to put their lives in the hands of an anonymous voice from across the border in Bangladesh. Venturing out into the stormy Bay of Bengal from bases in the Sunderbans, the fishermen keep tuned in to Bangladesh Betar, which broadcasts weather updates continuously, against the three bulletins put out by good old All India Radio (AIR).Every day, almost 4,000 fishing trawlers carrying about 60,000 fishermen brave the sea, venturing as far as 150 km out in search of pomfret, hilsa, baul and prawn. For these hardy fishermen, weather reports are a matter of life and death. AIR puts out as many as three weather bulletins exclusively for these fishermen.
But the fishermen do not consider three updates enough. "We have stopped tuning in to AIR. The weather reports they broadcast are very few and we cannot risk our lives depending on them," says Sishu Ranjan Das, who owns 16 fishing vessels.
"Bangladesh Betar, on the other hand, is much more dependable. They broadcast weather updates every five to 10 minutes, which are immensely helpful," he says.
AIR officials, however, are quick to point out that they broadcast what is made available to them. "We have to rely entirely on the Alipore meteorological office to provide us with the information," an AIR official says.
When contacted, a senior official of the Alipore meteorological office says AIR is given four updates daily. "We send four weather updates to AIR throughout the day: at 6.40 am, 12 noon, 4.30 pm and 9 pm. This is our daily routine and even if there are some changes in between, we can't inform AIR about it as we cannot exceed these four feeds each day," says PN Roy, assistant meteorologist in Alipore.
According to SK Jamal of AIR Kolkata, the weather bulletin broadcast during the day is quite adequate. "We have three exclusive weather reports for fishermen - at 5.55 am, 12.33 pm and 6 pm. In addition to this, we broadcast general weather reports at 6.30 am, 2.26 pm and 11.10 pm, all of which contain special information for fishermen," he explains.
For the 2.5 lakh fishermen in the region, there is just one compelling argument: A vessel, once it is far out at sea, requires at least 10 hours to retreat to safety. So every bit of weather news delivered on time matters to them. To make matters worse for the fishermen, territorial waters are not clearly demarcated. And once out at sea, they are constantly under threat of being abducted by pirates and of being then asked to pay ransoms to the tune of Rs 2-3 lakh.
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
