Kozhikode: As many as 600 fishermen from Puthiyappa harbour kept off from the sea on Wednesday as part of their protest against the harbour engineering department for not implementing renovation projects for the harbour. Fishermen also complained about the unscientific construction of the dredging operations at the Puthiyappa harbour.
The Harbour Development Committee members said they had submitted a harbour renovation proposal to the engineering department a year ago, but the officials had ignored the proposal. “They have not initiated any renovation project for the harbour in all these years other than the construction of a dredge”, said Puthiyappa councillor K. Nisha.
The demands of the fishermen include construction of an auction hall, scientific drainage system, two additional new wharves, breakwater and a ship-way for heavy load boats. “The Central Institute of Coastal Engineering for Fishery (CICEF) has already given the green signal, but the department is not ready to take any further steps to implement these ideas,” said P. Rajan, member of the Harbour Development Committee.
Renovation of the harbour was an already approved project of the State and Central governments aimed mainly to introduce better anchoring facilities for fishing boats at the harbour. The fishermen said that over 700 boats operated from the Puthiyappa harbour. The facility had the capacity to hold only 300 boats. Often, larger boats had to anchor several meters away from the coast, they said.
M.K. Raghavan, MP, inaugurated the protest here and said that he would talk to the district collector and officials of the harbor engineering department on the issue.
