Lunch is rarely fulfilling for a significant section of Keralites without a side dish made from freshly caught bay fish. 

However, putting fish on the table for the family is severely cutting into carefully calibrated home budgets. The diminished catch during the monsoon season has rendered fresh fish a premium commodity in the city. 

Dileef Rehman, a fish vendor who sources his catch from Vizhinjam, says that with the seasonal trawling ban in place, most of the daily catch comes from traditional fishing boats, including plank-built catamarans and dinghies fashioned from discarded styrofoam containers, which venture out to sea at dusk and return by dawn. 

“The artisanal fishers who paddle out to sea on small boats use fishing rods and handline fishing hooks instead of nets, which they find difficult to haul back to land. Moreover, the boats have little storage capacity compared to outboard-engined vessels and, of course, deep-sea trawlers”, he says. 

Jackson Pollayil, State president of the Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Union, said the south-west monsoon has rendered the littoral waters extremely choppy, making normal fishing operations, including launching outboard-powered boats and paddle boats, profoundly hazardous. “The dwindling catch threatens to upend the livelihood hood of fish vendors, a majority of whom are women, and seagoing fishers”, he says. 

Mr. Pollayil says the fallout has been a marked dip in daily catch and a corresponding rise in fish prices. “Boats which returned with 20 to 25 boxes of fish are making landfall at fish landing centres with not more than three or four boxes. The rough season has witnessed a noticeable decline in the availability of surface and deep-sea fish varieties”, he says. 

Santosh Victor, a fish vendor at the Palayam market, says the price of every fish, including sardines, has shot through the roof. Sardine priced at ₹150 a kg peaks at ₹480 on certain lean days”, he says. The price of mackerel, an affordable staple on the lunch table and on hotel menus, touched ₹700 last week. The price of tuna, anchovies, and other staples has increased exponentially, he said. 

Swaroop Ashraf, owner of a hotel in Palayam, said that the escalating costs of fish, cooking gas, and meat have forced hoteliers like him to cut the quantity served to stabilise prices, lest they lose ordinary customers.