Many fisherfolk in Kovvada and its neighbouring villages of Ranasthalam mandal in Srikakulam district have been going out to sell small items like caps, sun glasses and nylon cradles to eke out their livelihood from the past few years.

They allege that the mushrooming pharmaceutical plants as well as the proposed nuclear power park by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited in their area have forced them to do so.

According to locals and officials from the Department of Fisheries, fishermen go to Gujarat, Chennai and Hyderabad to get raw materials to manufacture the items locally and sell them across the state, particularly on national highways like NH 16, which passes through Visakhapatnam, Vizia-nagaram and Srikakulam districts in north Andhra Pradesh.

According to Mr Mylapalli Polisu, an active participant in the protest against the nuclear power park and pharmaceutical plants in the Pydi-bheemavaram industrial area, over 70 per cent of the 8,000 voters in the fishing community of 11 coastal villages in Ranasthalam mandal engage in selling caps and cradles for the last one decade.

There is no fish catch due to marine pollution caused by the increasing number of pharmaceutical industries, he added.

“We have appealed several times to the fisheries department to help them financially to take up alternative business like selling caps, but the department did not respond,” Mr Polisu said.

While talking about the progress of the nuclear power park, Mr Polisu added that even Indian Navy sailors were worried about working in the Russian built and nuclear powered submarine, INS Chakra -II, which is likely to be landed at the Eastern Naval Command base here soon. What about the plight of uneducated fisherfolk in Kovvada, Mr Polisu wondered.