Livelihood Activities among the Marine Fisherman Community in Odisha: Issues and Challenges

This abstract summarizes the livelihood status and socio-economic baseline study undertaken in the Sandhakud area marine fisherman of Paradeep coastal area under Jagatsinghpur District. The study mainly focused the reasons behind their deprivation and poor conditions. Data was collected with the aid of both primary and secondary sources. The secondary information for study is collected from various journal, books, magazine and web-sources. The primary source includes data collection by applying anthropological tools and technique. Mainly the fishermen are depended on fishing as their only source. The real benefit enjoy by middle man caused by indebtedness. Changing in climate makes them seasonal unemployment. So they indebted mostly from relatives and merchant where the interest rate is high and this lead them poor. This is reflected in poor intake of food, poor health care, increased alcoholism, gambling and fight among men. The depleted marine resources forced the women to go for daily wage to maintain their family. The food security of the household get affected, alcoholism led to women beating and ill health of men. Single woman headed family is the most burden family in the village.