Dry fishing community of around 3000 families is facing massive, unimaginable ordeals owing to severe climate change issues in this famed Chandipur sea coast, Bay of Bengal. Stretched around 480 seacoast lines in Odisha, Bay of Bengal provides a major fishing hub at Gopalpur, Ganjam, Puri, Paradip seacoast & Baleshwar, Digha' seacoast areas to millions of fisherman communities for years, now in perils.

According to district fishery dept statistics around 3000 fisherman community are living around Chandipur seacoast wherein apart of fish catching from deep sea through trawlers, it gives them a continuous livelihood from dry fish' popularly known as sukhua' in local language which ensures them round the year a constant income. '

But now it's a burden on us, said sukhua' maker Usharani Behera of the area, ' sukhua' making involves lot of preparations from catching in deepsea to than drying methods for days & in today's rising cost factor many women of her community are switching to other vocation for earning' said Usha.

Sukhua' making involves lot of activities after their male counterparts catched from the deep sea; it poured in the field area, or specially built platforms to spread the varieties of fishes on it under sun rays for few days. After one or two days salt is mixed with these & spread over big polythene or bamboo erected areas over which fishes fix on line to drying them, these often used for fishes which are more weight than the smaller fishes. For days these sun drying fishes were made upside down for perfect drying then it would be collected in raks, or tubs to pack it for marketing.

The most important aspect of this drying up aspect is, said Akhtar Saizzudin, a sukhua' trader of Balaramgadi, Chandipur that ' though their male counterparts caught fishes from the deep sea & after relieving these from fish boats, the real work of their woman begins- as they're the ones who used to quantify in shape, size to categories to types & than adopt the Indigenous method of drying these, each with different ways eg; bigger sizes in the bamboo decked erected platform while the smaller in sizes spread in vast areas nearest to coast & every day it needs to be tenured with salt & upside down for full drying as the less weight a sukhua' have it fetches good rate while those weighed high are considered not in good taste as they carry water content in them as required more drying up procedure during preparing but were left' said Akhtar, whose three generations were in sukhua business in this area.

The women here produce varieties of sukhua' from sea fishes like Oliari, Pilo, Sila, Tampudi, Sapua, Koteri, Rebo, Kantia, and Chingudi, which sell from ₹100 a kg. to ₹800 per kg depending on its sizes & quality. They were usually able to get monthly earnings of ₹3000 to 25000/ depending on their completion of sukhua' making process. Certain varieties of sukhua' are high in demand like Ilsi' sukhua which costs upto ₹2500 a kg. A big variety sukhua' like sila, tampudi, ilsi, and kantia usually exported to out of the area, adjacent states of Jharkhand, Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bangladesh in certain specific times like Durgapuja, Makar' in a year.

Sukhua' was considered a poor man's fish' earlier due to it's lower cost than fish' but now with high rates it even earns the status of rich one's delicacy' . It's a must added dish in several households with pakhala'( watered rice) & sukhua', which the poor as well as rich eat with savor. Sukhua' has a net revenue ranging between ₹200 crore to ₹1200 crore from this zone alone which has declined in last few years as the next generation sukhua' makers prefer other vocation in comparison to it. Although high-tech sukhua' making units are coming up at high cost it's losing its sheen in community. A few years ago few efforts to sell sukhua at platforms though initiated by few entrepreneur exporters but lack of proper marketing strategy didn't bring the desired results, said Tapan Mohapatra, a fish feed supplier of the area.

We're unable to go every day sea to catch fish, said Patia Naik, a fisherman who earlier frequently entered the deep sea up to 25 days a month but with several governmental restrictions to erratic climatic conditions it's difficult for us to carry the fish catching in huge sea area earlier touching the shores now went to at least 10 km away from the sand area. Besides entering into the deep sea of miles was not assured one of the expenses incurred in trawler boats for a team of four, said Naik.

Thus male members were discouraged in pursuing their catching business owing to several issues which resulted in smaller quantity than earlier & that too in a month. Besides after the Bangladesh insurgency, there's a complete stoppage of dry fish' sukhua' export resulting in the good rates it could have fetched but after dumping for months it sold at lower prices, many sukhua' traders of the area said.

Further the recent cyclone Dana' has wreaked havoc on the stored sukhua nearby the seacoast that huts covered with polythene sheets, as such temporary storage sheds for sukhua' raised at nearby places to enable the women sukhua makers for easy transportation to drying up activities; but the sudden cyclone couldn't enable many sukhua makers to shift their products- some were already completed while much were under half dried processed hence the tumultuous weather for days spoil the ideal sunny weather to dry these causing huge losses to many fisherwoman in the area. Even in such a hurry, we're unable to get local vehicle to shift our sukhua' from the seaside area to other places, said Usha, ' even though we got few goods carriers their charges were too high that could afford by many' hence many underprocessed sukhua' were left under the polythene hubs for few days, during the cyclone & after it major sukhua found damaged as these were inedible for human consumption."in a rough estimate around ₹15 lakhs worth half processed sukhua' of several makers were lost during the last cyclone but the district fishery officer didn't take note of it, neither send any damage report on it, alleged few sukhua makers of the area. However citing a lack of staff the DFO, JK Behera said that, with a handful of staff it could not able to cover the entire loss area but whenever it received such damage report from the area it was sent to govt for necessary assistance to fishermen's community.

Jaleswar, Kalma, Balarmgadi, kashafal, upto Digha sea coast stretched to Bengal have these sukhua' particularly woman makers community, while their menfolks usually engaged in fishing from the deep sea level they used to prepare sukhua' a beach-home based tasks making them capable economically over these years, however with the rising threat to local climate changes very often & abruptly their activities were gradually shrinking, said Tapaswini Mohanta, a Woman Self Help Group ( SHG) coordinator assisting women sukhua makers' in financially viable groups. We coordinate with local banks to obtain loans on zero interest as per the norm, which was in operation for a long till the BJP govt in power but the recent change to BJP govt in state had put these women SHGs in a quandary over financial assistance to them!

However, in its place, another new yojana called Subhadra' is operationalized by the current govt with each eligible woman to get a five-year term support of ₹5000/ every six months. Though few had benefited in getting these but many sukhua making woman are yet to take this benefit as many are unaware of this recent scheme, opined many.

Cutting these the District Fisheries Officer ( DFO) J. K. Behera said we were aware of the sukhua making woman issues & the dept is taking steps to enroll that leftout in Subhadra scheme, further the sukhua' & fish hub with high technique way is underdeveloped & soon act as a catalyst to fishing community development, said Behera, the DFO of the area.

Fishing activities shrinking has yet other dimensions also according to the ongoing study of Dept of Geology & Atmospheric Science, FM University, Baleswar under whose purview Chandipur coastline study etc commenced. According to Center Prof Dr. Smruti Rekha Sahoo, Chandipur & adjacent beach areas have immense fishing potential which enables a whole community to engage in these activities as a principal livelihood but over the last decade had to reduce these due to several factors eg; sudden abrupt climate change issues, recurring cyclone on these zones, marine debris like plastic, polythene to other garbages on the sea, which gradually reducing its coastline to sea resources productivity, as a result, seaman community were the first to affected' though the Centre started it's beach cleanup activities to observing World Ocean Day every year but all these were of recent' said Sahoo.

While academic institutions such as FM University though trying it's responsibility towards betterment lessening fish productivity from sea affects sukhua' makers community financially a lot, as most of the time they have to resort to other activities of livelihood for their survival, opines many. Further the next generations after studying at school, colleges often feel distrust to take their living & livelihood solely from it, like their parents, which is changing the sukhua' making family units to closing one after other. Earlier there were hundreds of such sukhua making units but now it is reduced to a few' said Tapan Mohapatra a fish seed feed supplier in the area.

Thus a whole gamut of issues reckoning the sukhua makers' & despite manifold efforts of different agencies- govt & non-govt the trade is succumbing to geophysical pressure to shifting of generations priority' soon the traditional mode of sukhua making process in spreading, drying it on vast nearby beach areas may disappear giving scope to few machine drying technology led making' Sadhaba Marine' exporter owner Capt H N Mohapatra, doing fish yarn net making industry to fish exporter told.

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