Question

write two achievements of Tawa Matsya Sangh

Answer 1

Answer: Building of the Tawa dam resulted in the submerging of large areas of forest and agricultural land. Some of the displaced forest dwellers settled around the reservoir and found a new source of livelihood by fishing. The rights of fishing in the Tawa reservoir were given to private contractors by the government in the year 1994. These contractors drove away the local people in order to get cheap labour from outside. At this point the villagers united and decided to set up an organisation for protecting their rights. This led to the formation of the Tawa Matsya Sangh(TMS). The TMS demanded their right to continue fishing for their livelihood by organising rallies and chakka jams (blocking the roads).

Impact of TMS: The government, as a response to the protests by the TMS, created a committee to assess the issue. The committee recommended that the villagers should be given the fishing rights for their livelihood. Consequently, in 1996, the Madhya Pradesh government decided to give the displaced people the rights for the reservoir. Two months later a five-year lease agreement was signed and on January 2, 1997, the villagers from 33 villages started their new year with their first catch.

Functioning of TMS: A cooperative was set up which bought the catch from the fishworkers at a fair price. The cooperative also arranged the transport and sale of the catch at a good price. This resulted in a three-fold increase in the earnings of the fishworkers. The TMS has also begun giving loans to the fishworkers for repair of nets and buying new nets and hence brought about a tremendous change in the lives of the fishworkers.

Answer 2

Achievements of Tawa Matsya Sangh:

• The Tawa Matsya Sangh has demonstrated that when people's organizations get their rights to livelihood, they can be respectable managers.  
• This was upheld by the rise in earnings of the fishermen and the protection of fish in the artificial lake- both being an impression of the TMS.
• The building of the Tawa dam rose in the suppressing of large areas of forest and agricultural land.  

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