More than 200 victims of the Chennai oil spill caused due to the collision of two merchant ships Dawn Kancheepuram and B W Maple – were present at the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal on Tuesday, seeking a speedy trial of the case. Leave alone providing the compensation to these fishermen, who suffered livelihood loss during the oil spill eight months ago, the Fisheries Department has not yet finalised the list of beneficiaries. Condemning official inaction, the bench comprising Justice P Jyothimani and expert member P.S. Rao ordered the Fisheries Department to scrutinise the beneficiaries’ list by next hearing, on September 20. Explaining the delay, the counsel for the respondent argued that they had received a total of 1,12,051 applications from the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram for the compensation and that verifying them is a time consuming exercise. The state government had already provided compensation of Rs 5,000 to a few people after the incident. They need to be excluded from the list, as there are many repeat names. We would complete the verification procedure at the earliest, assured the counsel for the respondent. However, the counsel for the petitioner explained to the court that the government issued compensation is different. A lot of fishermen had lost their boats worth around Rs 1 lakh. How can Rs 5,000 be enough? They are entitled to the compensation provided by the claims department set up by both the ships, said the counsel for the petitioner.