Fishermen seek restoration of fishing rights in Kumarasamy tank

Coimbatore Vatta Meenavar Kooturavu Sangam, (a fishermen cooperative union), has urged the Coimbatore Corporation to not stop fishing in Kumarasamy (Muthannan) tank and remove the board announcing the ban.

The union, represented by its president M. Balamurugan, petitioned the Corporation recently saying the District Collector had granted it fishing rights for four years, till 2023. The union members, based on the permission, fished in various tanks in the city without hindering the lake development work that the civic body had taken up under the Smart Cities Mission.

But on November 26, the union said, its members came across a board on Kumarasamy tank bund that read that the Corporation had banned fishing and it would handover to the police those who violated the order.

They were shocked to find the board as they had paid the required charges for 2020 to the Public Works and Fisheries departments. Therefore, the Corporation should remove the board, it demanded.

A few members of the union said that the Corporation would restore their fishing rights as they represented their grievance to Commissioner P. Kumaravel Pandian, who assumed them that the civic body would also remove the board.