Brief note on my visit to Karnataka on 02 to 04 January 2025

Brief note on my visit to Karnataka on 02 to 04 January 2025. My previous visit was very short on 09 December 2024.

My visit was to the coastal areas of Uttar Kannada District in villages close to Kumta and Honnavar.

Visit started with Visit to Vannalli village in Kumta block where there are around 100 fishing cannoes carrying on small scale fishing activities. Met local leadership there and got into conversation about fishing issues. Discussion centered around two themes - inaccesibility and ignorance about government schemes and organisation of fishing communities.

Village fishing leadership then arranged my meeting with Taluka level leadership of the fishing communities wherein some insights were drawn out. It was observed that State has made funds available for cage fishing and very few have invested. It requires preliminary investment of over two lakh rupees and small scale fishers are not always in a position to invest to this extent. In fact there one example got cited during wherein an entrepreneur invested in cage fishing in river but local small scale fishers opposed and compeled the entrepreneur to abandon the project. There is certain level of hostility to cage fishing due to ecological ground etc.

Also carried on visit to Pavankurve Beach, Honnavar where Global Tenders are issued to construct Port facilities but there are no takers so far. Pavankuve Beach is adjacent to Tonka Beach separated by twin watery mouth of Badagani and Sharavati rivers. I have been informed by local inteligentiasia in Kumta that this was the spot where Timoja Naik and his team met Portuguese naval officers and successfully negotiated to attack Adil Shah empire rule in Goa early 1510. Negotiations were backed by Vijaynagar Empire whose headquarter was located in Honnavar. The negotiations changed fate of Goa on 25 November 1510 with insertion of Portuguese rule and expansion of Christianity in Goa and beyond in the East. I am grateful to Prakash Mesta for these insights.

My visit also included trip to Tonka ward in Kasarkod village in Honnavar. It's site of conflict, in fact a cold war zone. Every tiny brawl over drinks is carefully prospered into Police station to get registered as criminal offence. So far number of such cases is around 300. These are filed as a part of corporate strategy to subdue revolt against the proposed Port in the locality by increasing community stress levels. Anti-dote to this is needed. 

The local Tonka Beach covering around 96 acres of land was leased out to private company in order to construct Port in October 2010. Subsequently Public Hearing was held and after adequate manipulation MoEF granted Environmental Clearance (EC).

Tremendous opposition ensued on streets, court rooms of Bangalore High Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT), Chennai, and police stations nearby Honnavar. 20 people were arrested and jailed on 31 January 2024. They were released and got heroes' welcome by 1000 people with street parade and flower garlands. A celebration!

Tonka beack is truly unique. It's formed by acreted land after 1984. Since then fishers occupied it and turned into fish drying space. Fish drying is big business here. Fish from trawlers mainly is dried up in locality. However after the beach was leased out access was blocked by constructing wall. So the portion for fish drying shrieked drastically though not stopped.

Accretion land is newly formed land due to unusual volatility of water flow behaviour of Sharavati river. In 1984 Sharavati changed her mouth and moved northwards by four kilometers. It was dystopia year for the river. There was already one dam on the river prior to 1984. It is known as Linganamakki dam located around 100 kms away from the mouth. 1984 witnessed commissioning of second dam 45 kms obstructing the natural water flow dynamics. Its named as Gerusoppa dam. The second dam was immediate provocation according to local expert Prashantha Ramappa for which River moved her mouth. Tremendous changes in sand deposits were witnessed too. 

Tonka Beach is clean and sand white. It's favored destination of Olive Ridley turtles and it's well documented through local painstaking team in the region headed by Rajesh Tandel. 

EC of the Port project had expired. It was granted afresh on 31 January 2024 and advertisement was published in local kannada newspapers on 02 January 2025. This time there is no need to hold Public Hearing as the MOEF rules stands change. People of the coast no longer matter nor their say.

People in the region are aware that Port construction will spell doom for turtle conservation site, to verdant ecology, fishing based livelihoods and more importantly Port colonialism will set in. The first victim is going to be the locals and then the Island close to shore in Arabian Sea known locally as Basava Raja Durga Island.

Who needs the Port for handing of ore in barges? This information is not clearly visible. Careful disection of the situation however zeroes in the niddle of accusations on two corporates Jindals and Vedanta. They have commitments to extract lage amounts of ore from Karnataka and accessibility is an issue. There are protests against ore transportation from Port in Goa so industry perceived Port in Honnavar as a way out. There are various challenges the movement is facing including issues of finding reliable legal defenders in court rooms etc.

I also had some discussions on coastal situation of Karnataka coast with leadership of Khushi Parisar, Kumta and possibilities of collaboration explored.

These are some insights I picked up and needs further probing. Follow up on this note is required. Port struggles in JNPT, Vadvan, Goa, Honnavar Vijhingam needs to be linked up. This is a challenge before us.

I remain grateful to Prashantha Ramappa for his co-operation and support. He contributed his skills and expertise to make may visit not only fruitful but enjoyable too.

Sebastiao Rodrigues 

General Secretary

NFSF