MUMBAI, July 8 -- It's 4:30am, and Devdas Salian is carefully inspecting the ladyfish neatly laid out on a white wooden board at Sassoon Dock. As head chef at Trishna - the Fort restaurant whose clientele ranges from heads of state to regular, seafood-loving Mumbaiites - this is part of his early morning routine. With an hour to go before the auctions kick off, Salian is making sure the ladyfish meets his exacting standards. It has to - 'Lady Fish Hyderabadi' is the showstopper on today's menu, and he's counting on it to deliver. But, lately, Salian has been a little on edge. If the Mumbai Port Authority's (MbPA) ultimatum to the dock's warehouse operators kicks in, it won't just shake things up for him - seafood menus across Mumbai, and possibly even beyond, will have to adapt. Salian, along with hundreds of other restaurateurs, will have to look for fresh catch elsewhere. The big question is: where? "We cater to a high-profile clientele. Ministers, presidents, consulates and even the cricket teams of England and South Africa are fans of our seafood. I source lobsters, squid and fish worth Rs.6 lakh every month from Sassoon Dock. If the godowns shut down, it's going to be difficult to find a new supplier," says Salian. Sassoon Dock, on the eastern waterfront in Colaba, is the nerve centre of Mumbai's fish trade. One of the oldest docks in Mumbai, it has two jetties, landing points for 150 tonnes of fresh catch hauled in from trawlers every day. The daily turnover is Rs.4 crore. The dock also hosts 60 warehouses or godowns owned by MbPA. They serve as pre-processing centres before the catch makes its way into a supply chain that serves fish markets and restaurants across Mumbai. Of the 150 tonnes of seafood processed here daily, including some brought in from smaller ports in and around Mumbai, a large portion is exported overseas. The current flashpoint relates to a dispute over rent paid to the MbPA. The fish processors started paying rent only in 2000, following a court directive. While they rent the warehouses from the Maharashtra State Fisheries Development Corporation (MFDC), which manages the godowns, the latter in turn pays rent to the MbPA. The port authority is now demanding rent at Ready Reckoner rates, an astronomical increase. The dispute over rents goes back 30 years and was, in fact, addressed in 2014, when MbPA had instructed godown users to vacate. However, a meeting in 2015 with senior ministers Eknath Khadse and Nitin Gadkari resulted in a consensus to protect the fishing industry by forming a tripartite agreement among stakeholders. Now the port authority - owner of vast, hitherto unmonetised stretches along the eastern waterfront - has resurrected the issue. It issued a verbal ultimatum to warehouse operators on June 26. If they fail to pay Ready Reckoner rents, they would have to vacate in 15 days. With time running out, the Koli fishing community, and the 25,000 people who populate the supply chain linked to Sassoon Dock, are very worried. They include fish vendors, porters, prawn peelers, ice suppliers, ice crushers, handcart pullers, transporters, restaurants, fish sellers and more. In dim godowns, around 100 women, prawn and fish peelers, work tirelessly for 12 hours at a stretch. Hemi Rathod, a resident of Ambedkar Nagar slum in Cuffe Parade, has been doing this for over 20 years. "My fingers bleed from shelling prawns, which are exported abroad. We don't know any other work." Each woman peels up to 30kg of prawns daily, from 7am to 7pm, a task machines cannot replicate. "Even pregnant women work here for 12 hours," Rathod says. Gorakh Lanke, a seafood supplier, explains the chain that is at risk. "We buy fish, send it to the godowns for peeling, then for icing. Each supplier like me employs 30-35 women. If the godowns shut, all our workers will lose their livelihood. We buy 25 tonnes of fish daily, which eventually goes to Taloja for processing." Pankaj Tivlekar, a third-generation Koli and owner of two fishing boats, says, "Our job is to catch fish and bring it to the godowns, where it is processed. I earn around Rs.5 lakh a year from this traditional trade. I employ 20-30 workers, including crew members from Ratnagiri. Now our future is uncertain." Sassoon Dock is one of Mumbai's oldest surviving links to its grand maritime past. It was one of the many institutions established by David Sassoon, a Baghdadi Jew and die-hard entrepreneur who settled in Bombay with his family. Migrating here at a time when risk-taking and capital-driven ventures built the city's maritime economy, the Sassoons contributed to infrastructure, commerce and philanthropy and shaped the city in fundamental ways as it expanded in the late 19th century. When the Sassoons built the dock in 1875, it wasn't meant to be a fishing port. Ships laden with bales of cotton, not fish, sailed out of Sassoon Dock back then, establishing Bombay as a lynchpin in the international cotton trade. It was only a matter of time before the dock took on its present purpose and has since remained a vital part of Mumbai's trading legacy. Now, heritage and history could find themselves at odds with a newer, more relentless force - a growing trend among the city's major stakeholders to extract every ounce of commercial value from its land. Krishna Pawle, president of the Shiv Bharatiya Port Sena, which manages the godowns at the dock, says that two years ago, when a public interest litigation was filed over the stench from fish processing at the dock, several godowns were handed over to delivery service channels unrelated to fishing. "Sassoon Dock sits on 25 acres of prime land. We suspect they want to dismantle the fishing industry and develop the waterfront. We fear this (the ultimatum over rents) could be part of a larger plan." While Avinash Pathak, managing director, MFDC, acknowledged the June 26 verbal ultimatum, Aadesh Titarmare, deputy chairperson, MbPA, was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts to contact him....