Forty-five-year-old Nagaraju was busy mending the fishing nets and overhauling his motorised boat as the two-month ‘fishing holiday’ comes to close on June 14.
So were scores of other fishermen on the Kothapatnam sea shore, who enthusiastically preparing themselves to resume fishing in the Bay of Bengal as the ban imposed to conserve fish and other marine resources during the breeding season ends on Friday.
“Unlike in the past, the sea has been very rough in the last couple of days,” observes Nagaraju.
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“However, we are hopeful of better catch season this year as weathermen have predicted a near normal monsoon. The catch has not been so encouraging due to lack of adequate rains in the previous years.”
Many await aid
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MG-NREGS) has come as a boon for them this year as they got on an average ₹200 per day in the last two months, according to another fisherman Chapala Seshaiah.
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However, many of them have not yet got the financial assistance of ₹4,000 due to mismatch of names in the Aadhaar card, ration card and savings bank account, complains yet another fisherman R. Venkateswarlu.
Though the discrepancies have been corrected, payment has not been credited to their bank accounts yet, he laments. He also demands payment of enhanced compensation of ₹10,000 per month as promised by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in the run up to elections. The government should extend compensation to at least 15 persons per mechanised craft as against six persons now and also cover all nuclear families.
As many as 2,300 motorised crafts and 42 mechanised boats were anchored on the shores in 60 landing centres in the coastal mandals of Ongole, Kothapatnam, Chirala, Vetapalem, Chinnaganjam, Nagulapapadu, Tangutur, Singarayakonda, Ulavapadu and Gudluru. All the sea-faring fishermen from the 10 coastal mandals would be provided compensation after setting right the mismatches in relevant documents, says Fisheries Joint Director A. Balaram.