Fishermen on Thursday staged a demonstration near Venkata Subba Reddiar Statue, where three roads converge, demanding that the dredging work at Thengaithittu fishing harbour be speeded up. Nearly 60 fishermen were detained by the police for a few hours as the protesters insisted on continuing their demonstration on Thursday. Fibre Boat Owners’ Association president Bhaskar, who led the protest, said the fishermen had been unable to venture into the sea for fishing as the sea mouth is heavily silted. Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy inaugurated the dredging project on January 13 and Ganga, a hi-tech dredger of the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), reached the harbour last month to carry out dredging. However, the dredging had stopped because of technical problems and hundreds of fishing vessels remain berthed in the harbour. This affected the livelihood of fishermen. M. Ilango, Chairperson, National Fisherfolk Forum, said that it was usual that sand deposit occurred in the bar mouth of any harbour. Unfortunately, due to the unilateral decision to assign the Dredging Corporation of India the task of removing silt has resulted in non-action. The dredging ship worked on removing silt in December, four months after the order was given. But the machine had problems and so became dysfunctional. It is said that spare parts and the mechanics will have to come from Germany to set it right, he said. He added that in the past, when the dredging was delayed, owners of boats and fishworkers were given ?20,000 a month as compensation for loss of livelihood. He demanded that compensation of ?30,000 a month for three months be given to the affected fishermen.
2017, The Hindu.