‘Allow multi-day fishing in sea off Thoothukudi’

To ensure that livelihoods of fishermen and mechanised boat owners are secure, the stakeholders have unanimously demanded multi-day fishing at sea against the existing norm of fishing dawn-to-dusk, sources said.

RJ Bosco, joint secretary, Thoothukudi Deep Sea Mechanised Boat Fishing Development Association, said only when multi-day fishing is allowed by the authorities concerned at sea, the boat owners could meet expenditure on diesel, labour charge, ice bars and certain other procedures.

As of now, the mechanised boats off Thoothukudi fishing harbour are allowed fishing from 5 am to 9 pm everyday. Despite incurring huge expenditure, the fishing fleet is compelled to return to the harbour within the stipulated time. It’s mandatory that all mechanised fishing boats that ventured into the sea in the morning as per schedule, must return. But, nobody’s concerned whether each of the fishing fleet netted adequate fishes to meet their expenditure. Hence, multi-day fishing is the only demand from the boat owners and fishermen too.

During the years 1995 to 2001, an agreement existed between the mechanised boat operators and country-craft operators for multi-day fishing and it proceeded well. But, the agreement could not be continued from 2002 after an unfortunate accident at sea.

More importantly, Bosco cited that the neighbouring Kanniyakumari district administration had recently allowed 48-hour fishing at sea against the existing norm of daily fishing.

Hence, the Mechanised Boat Owners Association demanded Thoothukudi Collector Sandeep Nanduri to implement similar fishing procedure in Thoothukudi also in the interest of the fishermen and the boat owners, Bosco said.

According to S Joeboy, a mechanised boat owner, since there’s no adequate fish catch, many boat owners were reluctant to engage their boats. Though Thoothukudi fishing harbour has a fleet of 250 mechanised boats, less than 50 boats ventured into sea over the last few months, he said.