Appealing to Collector M. Karunakaran to allow them to use banned purse seine nets, a group of fishermen from Koottapuli submitted a petition in his office on Thursday.
The petitioners said the breadwinners of 1,200 fishermen families of Koottapuli were fishing only with fibreglass boats for the past several decades even though they were facing serious threats from the mechanised boat fishermen of Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts, who would carryout their fishing operations in sea just 3 nautical miles from the shore.
Since this practice often caused serious damage to the men and material of the fibreglass boat fishermen, they, instead of venturing into the sea at night, were compelled to restrict their operations between early morning and forenoon in the areas closer to the shores. “Whenever we dared to go fishing at high seas in the night, the mechanised boats damaged our crafts and fishnets. Hence, we’ve to restrict the duration between early morning and forenoon with purse seine nets, as this fishing practice alone is profitable for us,” said J. Arockiyam, one of the petitioners.
The petitioners pointed out that the State Government, through Tamil Nadu Fishing Regulation Act 1983, had banned the use of mechanically drawn huge purse seine nets by the mechanised boats and fishing trawlers at 12 nautical miles and beyond that point in a bid to conserve marine wealth and more importantly, the countryboat fishermen from being decimated by the larger vessels, especially at night. However, the officials enforce this ban only on the country boat fishermen using purse seine nets, who would draw this net manually without using any mechanical device. At the same time, the officials turn a blind eye towards the mechanised boats and trawlers using huge purse seine nets that could only be drawn from the sea after fishing with the help of winches. Hence, the district administration should allow the country boat fishermen to use the manually drawn smaller purse seine nets, the petitioners said.
