“At any given time, half of the men are usually outside the village. Some in the Amberpet market in Hyderabad, some at Besant Road in Vijayawada, others in Vashi market or near the Gateway of India in Mumbai, or in Pahar Ganj in Delhi – all of them selling baskets and hammocks,” says Myalapilli Pattayya, who himself has just returned from a sales trip in Uttaranchal. Pattayya, 42 years old, like others in his village, started making nylon-rope baskets, bags, swings and hammocks around 20 years ago. Until then, fishing was the main occupation in Kovvada (listed as Jeerukovvada in the Census), a small coastal village of around 250 people adjacent to the Bay of Bengal in Ranastalam mandal of Srikakulam district.

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The Pydibhimavaram-Ranastalam region is now a major pharma centre in Andhra Pradesh, with industries on both sides of the Kolkata-Chennai national highway. Industry got a further boost here when this industrial belt became a special economic zone (SEZ)n in 2008-2009, and new companies began setting up their units here too. The SEZ Act of 2005 exempts numerous taxes and gives subsidies to industries along with relaxing labour laws. There are 19 SEZs in Andhra Pradesh, including four – Pydibhimavaram is one of these – focussed on manufacturing pharma drugs.

“The aquatic wealth of the region got ravaged because of the pollution caused by the pharmaceutical industries. Dead turtles and fish are often seen on the coast and these include the Olive Ridley turtle. The plant life on the ocean bed is poisoned, which in turn has poisoned the aquatic animals,” says Kunam Ramu, an environmental activist based in Budumuru village, who is associated with the National Alliance of Peoples Movements.

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This has made fishing a near-futile activity in Kovvada and other villages here. “We no longer go fishing because we can’t catch any fish even after working hard for long,” says 40-year-old Myalapilli Appanna. “We go into the sea at 4 a.m., row for 20 kilometres, drop the net at 8-9 a.m. and wait for a couple of hours before coming back to the shore at 2 or 3 p.m. Four to five of us go on one teppa. At the end of the day, we don’t even make 100 rupees per person.” “The fish we catch is not even sufficient for the curry in our own houses, forget about selling it and making money. We have to get fish from Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam or Ranastalam to cook in our houses,” adds Pattayya.



PHOTO • Rahul Maganti PHOTO • Rahul Maganti PHOTO • Rahul Maganti