The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Nomads up in arms against fishermen over relief

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 31, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Nomads up in arms against fishermen over relief

By M. Rajeev

People being evacuated to safer places from Manginapudi beach following tsunami alert on Thursday. Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar.

MACHILIPATNAM, DEC. 30. The massive scale of relief operations launched in the tsunami- affected areas notwithstanding, the nomadic fisherfolk settled adjacent to the sea at Manginapudi is facing a piquant situation.

More than 400 families of the fishermen coming from Uppada near Kakinada, who stay near the coast at Manginapudi for almost 10 months every year, have no complaints against officials or the magnitude of the relief work launched by the administration as well as voluntary bodies. But, they have a grouse against the local fishermen of the nearby Giripuram village who are `out to obstruct whatever relief that is being provided to them.'

In an apparent response to the trouble brewing among locals and the nomads, the administration sent a few buses to the locality this evening to shift all the 403 families living in the makeshift thatched huts to relief camps and a majority of them were evacuated from the place by the dusk.

Tidal wave alert

The sudden alarm over an `imminent' high tidal wave since afternoon only amplified the officials' effort to evacuate the people from the place to safer areas.

Scores of people carrying whatever belongings they could were seen in the locality all through the evening and all of them had one thing to say: "Please, somebody stop the locals from disturbing our lives. We have come here to live and are in no way an impediment to their work."

"We do not have any complaints against officials as they are here throughout since last Sunday. They are never found wanting in providing the required assistance to us, but they appear to be in a sort of dilemma after the locals began quarrelling with them on each and every issue," Timothy, one of the tribesmen, who was on his way to Machilipatnam, said.

According to Suramma, another resident of the hamlet, the nomads came from a place as far off as Kakinada to eke out their living and they were satisfied with whatever catch they were able to net every day. "Why should they come and try to obstruct us. We have been representing the matter to officials from the past few days," she said.

The versions of Vanka Appa Rao and Chokka Bandi were no different. "The Government is continuing to extend its help, despite the pressure. But, voluntary organisations appear to be thinking twice to come to our rescue, once the locals started objecting to that," they said.

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