Cyclone Mandous: More than 100 boats submerge in sea off Chennai’s Kasimedu, fishermen association says

CHENNAI: More than 100 fishing trawlers and fibre boats moored at the Kasimedu fishing harbour have completely submerged in sea due to cyclone Mandous, All Fisherman Association president Nanjil P Ravi said on Saturday.


He requested the Tamil Nadu government to give Rs 25 lakh for each trawler and Rs 5 lakh for each fibre boat damaged.

"The actual damage will be known only after a week as some boats may start going under water later. Also, there were very few boat mechanics and they could not fix all the damaged boats at a time. So, the state government, without fixing any time frame, should give compensation to all the fishermen affected. For partially damaged trawlers, the state government should allocate Rs 5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh for the partially damaged fibre boats," he said.

Ravi said that the previous governments always gave just Rs 5 lakh as compensation for damaged boats and it should change.

"After cyclone Vardah, compensation was provided to only 100 boats, and another 10 boats were left out," he said.

He said the Kasimedu fishing harbour should be relieved from the control of the
Chennai Fishing Harbour Committee and should be brought under the fisheries department. More finger jetties should be built to accommodate all 1,500 boats, so that they don't get damaged during cyclones, he said.

He said families depending on fishing should be given Rs 10,000 each as fishing activities were almost nil in the past week.