"The stakeholders are Fishermen Co-operative Society (FCS), Marine Fisheries Department (MFD), Maritime Security Agency (MSA) and Sindh Trawlers Owners Association (STOFA) who will jointly start cleaning of harbour channel," they added.
A decision in this connection came at a meeting of KFHA with officials of MFD, FCS, Pakistan Fisheries Exporters Association and fishermen at the fish harbour. MD KFHA, Abdul Ghani Jokhio chaired the session, officials said. Jokhio hoped the proposed clean-up drive of the harbour channel will help KFHA weed out the abandoned and dysfunctional fishing boats. He said all the inactive boats have become a primary cause of congestion at the channel.
"A 10-member committee, which Director Operations, KFHA will head, has been constituted to see the cleanup drive. The committee has members from all stakeholders to participate," the KFHA official said. The fish harbour's dredging has last been carried out about 20 years ago. Officials said the cleaning up of channel is now badly needed to deepen the channel draft for the smooth navigation of vessels.
Fishing boats continued to face navigational problems because of the low-draft of water at Karachi fish harbour. Karachi Port Trust has completed the survey of the harbour's navigational channel to deepen the seabed by four meters in line with the global port dictum. The last dredging of the fish harbour was carried out through EU grant by an Italian firm M/s "Lodigiani SPA" in 1990, costing the then currency unit of "ECU" 12 million, according to the officials.