Owners of fishing boats and fishing gears that were damaged more than a year ago off the Kochi coast have complained that they had not received any compensation so far despite the State department of fisheries making an assessment and quantifying the losses sustained by four of the boats involved in the incident. The boats that were moored on the Mattancherry side were hit by the propeller wash from a tug that was guiding a ship in the shipping channel. The boats came loose and equipment and gears were damaged in the incident, which took place in the first week of April last year. Speaking for the boat owners, social activist Francis Koluthungal said that the fishermen had first approached the Cochin Port Trust, which said that it was not liable to pay any damages as the boats were moored at a location where they should not have been moored. He said that the matter had been taken up with the Department of Fisheries. An official of the Cochin Port Trust said that the port trust could not make any compensatory payment. The port trust maintained that there was no accident. It was propeller wash that hit the boats that were moored in the place where they should not have been. The official said that when the fishing boats came loose in the aftermath of the propeller wash hitting them, it was the port trust’s boats that took some of the fishing boats to safety. Mr. Koluthungal said that the fishermen were poor and had no insurance for their boats.
2017, The Hindu