Orissa's home secretary, Ajit Kumar Tripathy, indicated recently that a bill is likely to be moved in the forthcoming budget session of the state assembly, which will seek to ban all types of aquaculture in the lake. As an interim step, the state government has already stopped the granting or renewing of leases for aquaculture in Chilka.

The cause of the fishermen met with instant support from the public and politician alike. Already the Orissa High Court and the Supreme Court have sought the curtailing of prawn culture in the Chilka lake, a hot spot ofbio-diversity and Giridhar Gamang's government could not but give in to the pressure.

The Chilka affair was a bomb waiting to explode. For over a decade, there has been a clamour to safeguard the rights and interests of the over one lakh Chilka fishermen by banning prawn culture in the lake. Hardly anyone bothered about it, however, until the issue reached a flashpoint on May 29. Drives to evict encroachers and demolish unauthorised prawn gheries (partitions) were taken up in the past but this time it was a much more concerted struggle.

What lent a keen edge to the fishermen's anger was the fact that their earnings had dwindled sharply over the years. Not only were they ill-equipped to take on the prawn cultivators, their movements in the lake were also restricted because of construction of prawn tanks along the shoreline.

The rich faunal resources in the lake were also rapidly dwindling, as shrimp pond aquaculture had choked the outlets of the lake, restricting the free flow of water from and to thesea. Admits A.K. Patnaik, chief executive, Chilka Development Authority, ``This activity had led to a series of ecological imbalances in the fragile lake.''

Rampant poaching of juvenile prawns of the tiger variety at the lake mouth, the dumping of other varieties of juvenile shrimp and fish by the poachers, the excessive decrease in the salinity level of the lake water, among other factors, all contributed to the depletion of marine, estuarine and fresh water fish species in the lake, much to the chagrin of the traditional fishermen.

While the average annual fish and prawn landing in Chilka was 8590 metric tonne in 1985-86, the figure had come down to a paltry 1100 metric tonne in 1997-98. Chilka, for all practical purposes, was becoming a lost resource to the large populace dependent on it. The fishermen felt neglected and cheated by the state government, the unscrupulous prawn traders and, ironically, even the NGOs who had spearheaded the Chilka Bachao Andolan in 1992.

It is now a do-or-die situationfor the Chilka Matsyajibi Mahasangh, an organisation of fishermen from 145 villages. Says Anandi Behera, the general secretary of the Mahasangh, ``Our struggle will not subside until we achieve our goal.'' The task ahead of them is onerous but not impossible one, he asserts. The brutal police attack on men, women and children at Sorana has only made them even more determined to take their fight to a logical conclusion.

The Gamang administration, in a knee jerk reaction to the police firing, suspended six officials, including the collector and superintendent of police of Khurda district, and transferred others. Clearly harried, it also promptly announced the immediate demolition of all gheries in the lake in consonance with the Supreme Court verdict and the interim report of a committee of the state assembly.

When, as suspected, the administration dithered in its intentions, the Mahasangh promptly flayed the administration for the ``deliberate'' delay and accused it of siding with powerful encroachers. Infact, most of the encroachers had requested for time up to June 21.

The term, ``mafia'' to describe the prawn cultivators, has become a byword for everybody, including children, in and around Chilka. The bloodshed of May 29 has at last united the community. Their tenacity has humbled the high and the mighty and the lagoon is on the verge of looking clean once again without a maze of bamboo poles sticking out of its placid blue waters.Will the tragedy of Chilka end with the demolition of prawn tanks and gheries? Many feel that this well may be the case.

But a lot more needs to be done to repair the damage caused to the lake. Scientists are of the view that it is shrinking fast because of heavy siltation and the consequent choking of its 35-km long outer channel that links it with the sea.

``Four rivers and 35 rivulets drain into the lake and dump, on an average, 13 million cubic metres of sediment every year,'' says Patnaik. Siltation is one of the principal reason why Chilka is dying today.

The lakecovers an area of 1100 sq km in high floods and shrinks to about 900 sq km in summer. But satellite imagery indicates that it is actually much smaller. The fishermen's struggle has helped to train the spotlight once again on Asia's largest brackish water lake.