The intervention of human rights panel has provided new hope to fishermen who had lost their houses in sea erosion in recent years at Ambalappuzha and nearby areas. The panel has asked authorities to resolve the issue of rehabilitation of the affected families without further delay.
Over a hundred families of fishermen had been rendered homeless during the past four years and staying at shelters readied by authorities. The human rights panel wanted the district administration to make use of funds available for disaster mitigation to rehabilitate the families in the event of unavailability of funds from other sources of the government for the rehabilitation purpose.
The affected families, belonging to the panchayats of Ambalappuzha north, Ambalappuzha south and Purakkad, had been accommodated at camps set up at schools and government property at a few locations such as Vandanam, Karoor, and Purakkad. Many of the houses destroyed in sea erosion were those constructed under the tsunami rehabilitation package.
The families staying at the camps were undergoing strain due to a variety of reasons including difficulty in managing the education of children and denial of quota of food grains under the Public Distribution System. The facilities at the camps were said to be grossly inadequate.
Over six hectares of land had been identified at Thottapally for constructing houses for the homeless. Sand from the plots was removed reportedly by gangs and the authorities failed to take timely action to stall the illegal activity. Proposals for rehabilitating the fishermen in areas away from the coast were not acceptable to them, as it would adversely affect their livelihood.
MP’s stance
K.C. Venugopal, MP, said in a statement that the list of beneficiaries, prepared by the Fisheries Department, for providing various benefits to fisher folk under different schemes, was faulty. Several deserving fishermen were omitted from the list of the landless. All the fishermen who lost houses in sea erosion should be provided with houses, he said.
