The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, on Friday, hearing a public interest litigation petition that sought life jackets for fishermen and rehabilitation of those affected in Cyclone Ockhi, directed notice to the Central and State governments.
A division bench of Justices M.Venugopal and R.Tharani adjourned the case to January 9.
The petitioner, C. Vetrikumaran of Naam Tamilar Katchi, said that there were 42 coastal villages in Kanniyakumari district. Over 80,000 fishermen were directly involved in deep sea fishing.
Cyclone Ockhi had left the fishing community devastated.
A large number of fishermen were still missing and feared dead.
The livelihood of the families had ruined as a result.
Life jackets should be providing to them for free so that they could saved their life at times of disaster caused by bad weather, collision of boats or if they fell off board.
The National Disaster Management Guidelines were not followed and the Central and State governments had failed to warn the fishermen about the cyclone.
By the time the warning was issued, the fishermen had already ventured into the sea.
The rescue measures were not launched immediately which compounded the woes of fishermen, the petitioner said.
