• SL asks India for date before or after budget period
• Ministry calls on researchers to develop alternatives to bottom trawling in Kalpitiya
• New act to replace decades-old law expected in Parliament within this year

A key Joint Working Group meeting between Sri Lanka and India on cross-border bottom trawling, originally scheduled for September, has been postponed following a request from the Indian side, with a new date yet to be fixed, Fisheries Ministry Secretary Dr. Kolitha Kamal Jinadasa has said.

Responding to questions on the bottom trawling issue at a forum on marine and coastal issues in Sri Lanka on Tuesday (29 September), Dr. Jinadasa described the dispute between Sri Lankan and Indian fisherfolk as “a quite delicate diplomatic question”.

“Our plan was to manage this with the Indian Government and we had planned for the next working group in September, but following a request from the Indian side, it was postponed to October,” Dr. Jinadasa said.

The dispute centres on mechanised trawlers from Tamil Nadu illegally crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) into northern Sri Lankan waters, depleting fish stocks and damaging marine ecosystems. 

Sri Lanka banned bottom trawling completely in 2017 and introduced steep fines in 2018, while India has sought to curb the practice by offering subsidised schemes to convert bottom trawlers into deep-sea tuna long-lining vessels and by banning fresh registrations of bottom trawlers in Tamil Nadu. Illegal incursions, however, have persisted.

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Dr. Jinadasa explicitly clarified that the meeting had been deferred strictly due to a medical emergency and not for any political reason. 

As a result, the Indian Secretary was also unable to attend the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI) conference in Rome, where officials from both countries had originally planned to meet.

A new date for the meeting has not yet been fixed. Dr. Jinadasa said a primary hurdle in rescheduling was that Sri Lankan Government officials were prohibited from travelling abroad during Sri Lanka’s parliamentary budget period. Owing to these travel restrictions, Sri Lanka has requested India to set a date for the meeting either before or after the budget period.

During the forum, Dr. Jinadasa said that despite the delay in bilateral talks, Sri Lanka was maintaining a firm dual-track approach to protect its sovereign waters and marine ecosystems.

“Our plan involves action in two ways: one is continuing arrests and another is discussions with the Government,” he said.

On the enforcement front, Sri Lankan authorities are maintaining active maritime patrols and apprehend between 50 and 75 illegal trawlers each year. Dr. Jinadasa noted that radar tracking and entrance monitoring data showed a “significant reduction” in incursions by Tamil Nadu trawlers, but cautioned that the issue persisted.

On the diplomatic front, Dr. Jinadasa said that India had outlined steps to transition its fleet away from destructive fishing practices.

According to him, Indian officials have introduced a new loan scheme to Indian fishermen at a very low interest rate to change bottom trawlers into long-line fishing, a programme India reports as successful.

India is also rolling out a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) to enable the Indian Navy and Coast Guard to manage fleet movements. Dr. Jinadasa commended the technology, describing the VMS as “one of the best in this region”.

In addition to foreign incursions, Dr. Jinadasa highlighted domestic bottom trawling challenges in Kalpitiya, Mannar, and Jaffna. Although official gazette notices prohibit bottom trawling, he said enforcement had remained lax until a court injunction halted operations for 28 local fishermen in Kalpitiya.

The Kalpitiya fleet targets a highly lucrative commercial shrimp species known locally as kurutu issa. Emphasising the economic importance of the catch, Dr. Jinadasa said it was “a very good resource” and a good source of foreign income. 

He noted that this had created heavy pressure from local communities to find a sustainable solution.

To address the deadlock, the ministry has engaged the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) and local universities to design alternative, selective fishing gear. NARA research indicates that if harvesting stops entirely, non-target species such as karalla (ponyfish) will begin to dominate the ecosystem, threatening its ecological balance.

“We do not have any new fishing gear for this fishery other than bottom trawling,” Dr. Jinadasa admitted. “We invite researchers and organisations to introduce new fishing gear that we can use.”

He added that new fisheries legislation was on its way to be submitted to Parliament to modernise the regulatory framework.

Rather than introducing piecemeal amendments to the existing, decades-old law, the ministry is introducing a brand-new fisheries act to replace the old framework entirely.

The upcoming act includes a specific window – a legal provision to allow and accommodate newly introduced fishing gear. Since bottom trawling is prohibited by gazette but lacks viable alternatives for specialised harvests such as the kurutu issa shrimp in Kalpitiya, the ministry plans to use this legal leeway to permit selective, non-destructive gear once researchers from NARA or universities develop it.

Outlining the legislative progress, Dr. Jinadasa said that extensive stakeholder meetings had been conducted, Cabinet approval had been obtained, and the draft had been submitted to the Legal Draftsman. The ministry has already responded to and resolved all comments raised by the Legal Draftsman.

The ministry expects to table the new act in Parliament within this year. The specific regulations under the act will be drafted and implemented after the main act is passed by Parliament.