Chennai: Punching holes in Opposition claims, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday said fishermen were warned about cyclone Ockhi a day before it hit the Kanyakumari coast and that he has appealed to the Centre to continue efforts to rescue missing fishermen.
He also said though the Centre has stopped its rescue operations, the state government has been supporting the fishermen continuing their own search by taking care of the expenses incurred. The Chief Minister also told the Assembly that he has requested the Centre to set up a naval station in Kanyakumari to aid such rescue operations.
Palaniswami was responding to queries from Opposition Leader M K Stalin and Congress MLA J G Prince seeking information on search efforts and relief works in Kanyakumari district. Stalin wanted clarification from Palaniswami on defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman's statement that search and rescue operations to locate missing fishermen have ended.
“Search and rescue efforts to locate missing fishermen are a task vested with the Centre. We have appealed to the Centre,” Palaniswami said in the Assembly.
“The government is bearing the expenditure of Kanniyakumari fishermen who volunteered and went on a rescue mission in their own boats to find their missing brethren. As many as 3,522 fishermen safely returned to their bases,” Palaniswami said.
He was responding to Stalin who quoted Governor Banwarilal Purohit's address on Tuesday, which said that rescue efforts would be continued till every missing fisherman was rescued.
Answering Congress member J. G. Prince who sought advanced communication gadgets to fishermen so that they could be intimated in advance in times of cyclone, Palaniswami said he had sought a dedicated satellite radio channel from the Centre to air weather bulletins to fishermen while they were at sea.
He said when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kanyakumari recently, the State government also sought 1,500 high frequency wireless sets. “You failed to do it when your (Congress) party was in power at the Centre,” he told Prince.
