The South Indian Fishermen Welfare Association and various other fishing collectives have demanded that the state government cancel the public hearing announced for the Coastal Zone Management Plan in Chengalpet on August 18, and withdraw the notified plan as it doesn’t include any fisher villages.
They stated that the drafts maps were incomplete and failed to register fisher livelihood spaces for 12 coastal districts. This, they stated, was in violation of CRZ 2019 notification.
K Barathi, president, South Indian Fishermen Welfare Association, said a similar public hearing was held in 2018. “Then, we had stated that 44 fishing villages were not included and the notification was incomplete. That was cancelled then. Again after a decade, they have not done any study and omitted fishing villages. We only want them to follow rules and act as per CRZ notification,” he said.