The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Political parties blamed for plight of Kanyakumari fishermen

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 19, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Political parties blamed for plight of Kanyakumari fishermen

By J.V. Siva Prasanna Kumar

NAGERCOIL, APRIL.18. Fishermen in Kanyakumari district have blamed political parties for the backwardness of coastal villages and demanded an exclusive Assembly constituency to make the community `self-reliant and enable them to accelerate the pace of development in their villages.' They feel that a separate constituency was the only option to improve their lot. The lack of access to quality education and security to their profession dictated by vagaries of nature had been hampering their progress.

Criticising political parties for neglecting the fishermens' interests, sources in the Coastal Constituency Delimitation Action Committee (CCDAC) here, said time and again the parties in Tamil Nadu made promises of expediting the pace of development of coastal villages in the district but the assurances were yet to materialise. The district was languishing for want of fishing harbours at Colachel and Thengapatnam and fish-landing centres in several villages. The district is naturally endowed with vast stretches of beaches with good road connectivity but little to boast of about the achievements.

Although the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea lap the district's shores offering tremendous scope for exploring marine resources to sustain their livelihood, the district has been managing with only one fishing harbour on the eastern side at Chinna Muttom abutting the Bay of Bengal. The absence of fishing harbours on the west coast side has been affecting the prospects of marine fishermen who are coerced to berth the mechanised crafts at Kochi in Kerala for fishing.

But this often drew the ire of Kerala fishermen who due to professional rivalry attacked fishermen from the district and damaged their boats.

There are nearly 3.15 lakh fishermen living in the district's 44 coastal and 68 inland villages and the formation of a constituency for them would grant `special privileges' to argue their case in the Assembly.

Further, this would help them lobby with the government and secure the release of fishermen languishing in the jails of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives.

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