To support the overall hilsa fishery management plan, food grain compensation or training on alternative income-generation is provided to households directly impacted by hilsa fishing bans. Households receive either a monthly ration of rice throughout the long (four-month) fishing ban period, or they receive training and materials to help them diversify their income. If in receipt of the latter (referred to as AIGA – alternative income-generating activities), households are typically not entitled to rice compensation. Under AIGA, training offered includes livestock rearing, sewing, agriculture and net-mending.
Both the food grain and the AIGA schemes are government schemes which were already established before the fisheries scheme, meaning these schemes could be readily linked to the fisheries scheme.
- Because the food grain and AIGA schemes pre-date the national fishery management plan, neither were necessarily well-suited to addressing the complexities of fishing-based livelihoods
- Households receiving AIGA were generally not entitled to food grain, and uptake for the AIGA scheme was very low – in around 2014 only some 0.5% of households received this kind of support
- Ensuring participation from the outset of compensation scheme design will help to address this issue by ensuring local needs and wants are accounted for
- Many non-monetary benefits and costs, including opportunity costs, can be very difficult to account for and value