India, Aug. 22 -- The Mumbai Port Authority's (MbPA) plan to lease 28 plots of over 217 acres along the city's Eastern Water Front has left the fishing community at Sassoon Docks concerned. The properties along the eastern coast include eight plots in the premises of Sassoon Docks, a heritage land, home to the fishing industry.

On Thursday, the Save Sassoon Docks Fishing Port Committee wrote a letter to the state fisheries minister Nitesh Rane and the MbPA requesting that land parcels in the Sassoon docks premises be leased out only to commercial units involved in the fishing trade.

Krishna Pawle, president of the Shiv Bhartiya Port Sena, a federation of 14 fisher associations, said, "If new people come to operate in this area, it will ...