Tagging Fishermen

Knee-jerk

• (Noun) an involuntary reflex kick caused by a blow on the tendon just
  below the knee.
• (Adjective) automatic and unthinking: a knee jerk reaction.

This is how the Oxford dictionary defines the term knee jerk, and is prethy
much the way the Government of Maharashtra reacted after the latest terror
strikes on the city of Mumbai. Of the many measures that were listed out as must
do, one stood out, not because of its ingenuity but because the plan had been
gathering dust at one of the Mantralaya shelves for quite sometime, before it
was picked up, dusted and presented as a rabbit out of magicians hat. Smart
cards for fishermen, read the headline a few days back, and the plan was
presented before the nation as solution to the porous coastline.

The erstwhile CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, who had to give up his throne after
indulging in what many referred to as terror tourism, had announced in front of
media persons, a policy wherein all the fishermen in the state would be issued a
smart card, that will provide all the details at a single go. According to the
states fisheries department, there are around 55,000 fishermen in the state
that regularly sail out in the Arabian Sea in hunt of Bombil, Bangda, Jhinga,
and others. In another announcement the state government further announced that
it had managed to issue identification documents to close to 24,000. Yet, this
number is highly debatable since only a week or so earlier, the number stood at
14,000.

Yet, the plan to register these fishermen has been around for quite sometime,
especially after Dawood Ibrahim and his ISI-backed terrorists landed RDX on the
Sindhudurg coast unhindered in 1993. But for quite some years the whole plan was
caught between the various departments who either thought themselves to be
responsible or just wanted to shun their responsibility, namely, the fisheries
department, the coast guard, the state intelligence department, and the like.
The meetings and deliberations continued at the home departments end till 1997,
when the entire responsibility of issuing the cards was moved to the fisheries
department. The responsibility for verification remains with the state police,
while the fisheries department monitors the procedure for application and
issuing smart card. The fishermen themselves are wary to go in for these cards,
as they have to shell out some Rs 150 from their pockets, which they are quite
unwilling to do.

Considering the failure rate of the numerous smart card ventures so far in
the state, for instance, sometime back Go Mumbai Smart Card was launched with
much fanfare but it completely failed to take off due to pitiful infrastructural
support. Then sometime back there was the grand announcement of Mumbai going
wi-fi, but there has been no groundwork on that either. Under pressure from
numerous quarters the government might coerce into conducting some staid
verification and identification exercise. But issuing smart cards that will give
out details from afar, is a distant dream and will remain one. Technology and
governance seldom go together in the Indian milieu.

Shashwat DC

shashwatc@cybermedia.co.in