Madurai: The Madurai Bench of Madras high court on Wednesday directed the central and state governments to file counter on a petition seeking to declare Ockhi cyclone as ‘National Disaster’ under the Disaster Management Act 2005.
The division bench comprising Justices M Venugopal and R Tharani also ask-ed the government to clarify on steps taken for providing relief and rehabilitation to the victims of the cyclone under the Disaster Management Act 2005 and in accordance with the National Disaster Management Guidelines relating to management of cyclone.
C.J. Rajan, state president of Samam Kudimakkal Eyakkam in his petition filed in the court said that he along with advocate team lead by R. Alagumani had gone to cyclone affected areas in Kanyakumari district and met the fishermen family who suffered the worst in the cyclone.
“We came to know that 38 fishermen are feared to have died and around 1,000 fishermen didn’t return to their native houses along with their 200 boats from the deep sea,” he said.
This apart, the coastal area fishermen’s livelihood was affected in the disaster as several boats, fishing nets, GPS were damaged, he said adding that around 42 fishermen villages are situated in the seashore of Kanyakumari district and around 80,000 fishermen were directly involved in fishing in deep sea.
Fishermen faced this disaster mainly because the state and central government didn’t provide information relating to cyclone to the fishermen well in advance, he said.
The petitioner also sought the court to direct the government to pay compensation to the family members of the fishermen who lost their life in cyclone and ' 10,000 to the injured fishermen. The government should take steps on war footing to construct a helipad rescue centre with helicopters and fishermen rescue team for rescuing the fishermen, he said.
After examining the petition, the court directed the governments to file response and posted the next hearing to December 20.
