Boostrapping : EAS.13 - EAS over Fishing
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Proposed administrative procedure - EAS.13
Equal   Allowance   System   over   Fishing

Pre-requiste readings :
  • EAS.01 -- Equal Allowance System over Underground Water

    Background

    The purpose is to reduce poverty, without taxing the rich. How? By ensuring that every citizen gets equitable share in the "rent" or "deemed rent" of natural resource. How? I have proposed several laws to enable that. EAS.13 is one of these proposed laws.

    This proposed law EAS.13 applies ONLY on fishing in ocean. A related proposed law EAS.13A, applies on fishing in confined water bodies like rivers, narural lakes, artificial lakes (created by dams) etc. In any case, EAS.13 and EAS.13A apply ONLY on state-owned water bodies and they DO NOT apply on fishing on private water bodies.

    Is there a need for Equal Allowance System on fishing in oceans, rivers, lakes etc? Currently, fishing is "free for all" i.e. anyone can fish any amount of fish, shrimps etc from oceans. If this does NOT cause any irrepairable damage to the enviornment, then THIS law is NOT needed. But if citizenry decides to put a limit on quantity of fish that may be fished, then this or similar such law can be useful.



    Overview of EAS.13

    Following is the overview of EAS.13
    1. The PM will appoint a Miniter of Fishery (as today).

    2. The Minister will appoint a Registrar per district, one Fishing Officer for entire India and one Fishing Guard for entire fishing area of oceans that comes under India. One Registrar may handle more than one district, or the Minister may assign the duties to any of the existing Registrar.

    3. The citizens can remove the above mentioned officers using RLPP.

    4. The Registrar will issue serial numbers to the companies which want to catch the fish from ocean using large motor boats (the Minister will decide the cut-off for large and small boats).

    5. A citizen using RLPP may Allocate his monthly Fishing Allowance to any company of his choice.

    6. The Fishing Officer will divide the ocean areas around India into several region. Say he divides ocean areas into 200 regions marked as say FR-001 to FR-200 (FR = Fishing Region). The Fishing Officer will decide fishing limits for each region. Say fishing limit for R001 is 100 tons/month, for R002 is 150 tons/months and so forth. Then he may divide each fishing regions' limits into say 10-20 slots.

    7. The Fishing Officer will conduct an auction every 3 months, where fishing companies can bid for each lot of each region. The bids will be in terms of Allowances, and NOT in terms of money.

    8. If a company is already holding a slot in a fishing region, it will only need to bid of upto 80% of maximum bid to retain that slot.

    9. If a company is fishing more than the limits, the Fishing Guard will bring the evidences before the Grand Jury and Jury, who will decide the fines.
    Now should every citizen in India have SAME Fishing Allowance, or should those near coast line should have more? IMO, the areas which are closer to ocean often have less fertile and saline soil, and so are more dependent on fishing. So IMO a citizen residing in within say 20 miles of coast should twice the Ocean Fishing Allowance than the rest. The Parliament will have to decide the exact Allowances per citizens. In any case, this issue hs NOTHING to do with EAS.13



    Overview of EAS.13 over Dams

    Following is an Equal Allowance System over Fishing in lakes, rivers, artifical lakes (created by dams) etc
    1. Forming a region : Say in case of river, the districts thru which the river passes forms the region. If the river is large, the whole state may form the region. Sameway, if a natural or an artifical lake is small, the district in which it lies forms a region. If the lake is large, more than one district or entire state may form the region. As always with ALL EASes, deciding the region is a step to be taken BEFORE enacting EAS, and it is NOT part of EAS.

    2. Deciding per citizen Allowance : The legislatures of that region, via LM or indirect voting, will need to decide which per citizen Allowances. eg in case of dams, one may decide that residents of that dam will have 2 Allowances and other residents of the state will have 1 Allowance. Again, this decision needs to be taken before EAS.13, and is NOT part of EAS.13.

    3. The CM will appoint a Fishing Minister (as today). The Minister will appoint a Fishing Officer, a Fishing Guard and a Registrar for each water source in the state. One person may manage more than 1 jobs.

    4. The citizens can remove the above mentioned officers using RLPP.

    5. The Registrar will issue serial numbers to the companies which want to catch the fish from ocean using large motor boats (the Minister will decide the cut-off for large and small boats).

    6. The Fishing Officer will decide the limit on fishing for each month.

    7. The ciitizens can allocate their Monthly Allowances to fishing companies using RLPP.

    8. The Registrar will disclose the EXACT amount each companies can fish strictly based on number of Allowances a company has obtained.
      eg. say a lake belongs to a district of 500000 citizens and every citizen has 1 Allowance, totalling 500000 Allowances. Say Fishing Officer sets the the limit as 4000 tons in a given month i.e. 8kg per Allowance. Then a company with 20,000 Allowance will have permission to fish 80tons of fish in that month.

    9. If a company is fishing more than the limits, the Fishing Guard will bring the evidences before the Grand Jury and Jury, who will decide the fines.



    Advantages of EAS.13
    1. EAS.13 reduces poverty. How? The fishing company will need Allowances from citizens to catch fish from oceans. In order to get Allowances, the fishing companies will have to give some fish/cash to the citizens. This will reduce poverty.

    2. It reduces nexusproneness in allocation of fishing rights.

    3. EAS.13 improves control over imposition of fishing limits. How? Suppose limit in a region is set to 1000 tons/months. Say the companies in that region are catching about 20% - 40% more fish. This means that the citizens are getting lesser value for their Allowances. eg. if the Allowances are fetching Rs. 100 per month, stopping this "theft" would increase the value to say Rs. 110 - Rs. 120. Given the monetary benefit, most citizens will start investigating the issue. And if the rumor of theft is correct, most citizens would Approve someone else for the position of the Fishing Guard using RLPP. In fact, the fear of prompt replacement alone would ensure Fishing Guard’s integrity, and thus low theft.



    Draft of the act to create procedure EAS.13

    One law needs to be passed in the Parliament to enact EAS.13 for Oceans. Please click here for the draft.

    For EAS.13 for smaller water sources, like rivers, dams etc. the laws will be at State/District level. As an example, I have drafted a proposal for "Equal Allowance over Fishing in Narmada Dams". For the draft, please click here.

         Now citizens can ask MPs/MLAs to pass this Act. But IMO, it will be wiser for citizens to first enact procedure LM.023, and then use LM.02 and LM.03 to pass these EAS.13 drafts WITHOUT any help from MLAs/MPs. For details of LM.03, please click here, and for details of LM.02, please click here



    If you have any other question, please mail it to MehtaRahulC@yahoo.com. Thousand thanks in advance.





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