Comparative study on the changes of the livelihood status of fisherman community on inside and outside embankment of Meghna Dhonagoda irrigation project

A comparative study was conducted on changes of the livelihood status of inside and outside of Meghna Dhonagoda Irrigation project. A total of five villages with 135 households head from inside and 134 from outside the embankment were randomly selected on the study area.Due to construction of embankment, 21% fisherman of inside the embankment changed their main profession of catching fish and working as fish trader (12%), fish farmer (3%), small trader (5%) and service (1%), whereas, on the outside of the embankment only 8% of them changed as fish traders (3%) and small traders (5%). All fisherman of outside the embankment use to fish in river, while, 64% and 36% of inside the embankment fish in rivers and pubic ponds with 10-15% share as harvesting cost, respectively. Although communication and other facilities have been developed inside the embankment, in case of fisherman it shows no significance at all. Although loan and health facilities of inside fisherman is marginally higher than that of the outside fisherman (83% and 75% of inside and outside fisherman, respectively have got loan facilities from NGO, Bank and Private etc.), 80% of the outside fisherman own gears and crafts, which was much higher than that of the inside fisherman (44%).Moreover, 41% and 13% of inside and outside, respectively do not possess any crafts and gears, and fisherman from both sides appeared as landless i.e. inside (97%) and outside (100%).Therefore, the study reveals that construction of embankment is considerably changing the socio-economic condition of inside fisherman than that of the outside.