No steps taken to upgrade fish landing centre into harbour, say Tharuvaikulam fishermen
The Hindu
THOOTHUKUDI
Even though more than nine months have lapsed after Minister for Fisheries Anita R. Radhakrishnan’s announcement in the Assembly that the Tharuvaikulam fishing landing centre would be upgraded into a fishing harbour with all modern facilities, nothing has happened so far.
Responding to a query from Ottapidaaram MLA M.C. Shanmugaiah in the Assembly in April last, Mr. Radhakrishnan said the landing centre would be upgraded into a modern fishing harbour with all facilities.
The Tharuvaikulam Fish Landing Centre, which came up three decades ago with 25 mechanised boats, now houses 255 mechanised boats and 130 country boats. However, only 26 mechanised boats can be berthed at the ‘T’-shaped jetty of the fish landing centre due to lack of depth.
“As sand accumulates near the jetty every minute, the depth has reduced from the optimum eight feet to just four feet, which poses a serious threat to the safety of boats. Hence, we can now berth the boats at the jetty’s tail areas where the depth is eight feet and above. We can berth only 26 boats due to this problem in tail areas, while all other boats are anchored in areas that have adequate depth. Hence, proper dredging should be done to accommodate more number of mechanised boats, all involved in multi-day deep sea fishing,” said A. Aniton of Tharuvaikulam.
Breakwater should be created to protect the boats berthed in the jetties from high tides and sand getting accumulated along the jetty, he added.
Fish exporter Manoharan said a minimum of two more jetties with 200-metre-length should be constructed while the existing 200-foot-long jetty should also be extended to 200-metre to accommodate all mechanised boats.
“Since fishing operation in Tharuvaikulam is growing by leaps and bounds, it should be upgraded into a full-fledged modern fishing harbour with all facilities at the earliest so as to ensure more revenue for Tamil Nadu,” Mr. Manoharan said.
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