Fishermen’s Satisfaction with the Services of Fisherman Identity Card: A Case from Rural Bangladesh

Abstract

The Department of Fisheries (DoF) has been working in Bangladesh to provide efficient and effective services using Identity (ID) Cards to all categories of fishermen who are involved in inland capture fisheries and marine fisheries. The fisherman ID card services are essential in ensuring the capacity for management, control, and surveillance to manage fisheries effectively and eradicate illegal fishing. To address this issue, we conducted a study to gauge the fishermen’s satisfaction level with the services provided by fisherman identity cards. We conducted the study in two unions of Madarganj upazila (sub-district) under Jamalpur district. A Likert-type scale was used to identify the services the respondents mostly received. For each of the statements, they were asked to indicate whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree with a corresponding score of 4, 3, 2, and 1, respectively. One hundred twenty fishermen were interviewed for data collection with a structured interview schedule in the selected unions from August 20 to September 22, 2022. The highest proportion of the respondents (86.68%) had a medium level of satisfaction, while 9.16% had a low and 4.16% had a high level of satisfaction regarding services provided through the fisherman ID card. Furthermore, providing rice during ban season, forming fishermen cooperative societies, and taking a lease of government open water bodies were the essential services received by the respondents using their ID cards. Among the selected characteristics of the fishermen, credit received, perceived economic return, extension media contact, organizational participation, and attitude towards extension service providers were identified as the influential factors affecting their level of satisfaction. As most of the fishermen had a medium level of satisfaction, concerned authorities should be more careful and take the initiative to make the services easier and more effective for the fishermen to maintain this current level of satisfaction.