Delegation to travel to Sri Lanka to talk, retrieve seized Karaikal boats: Puducherry Speaker

KARAIKAL: Puducherry Assembly Speaker Embalam R Selvam stated that a delegation would be formed by Puducherry to speak to Sri Lankan government and retrieve boats from Karaikal seized by the country over the years.

The Speaker was in Karaikal to lay foundation stones for development works at Karaikal fishing harbour, which will be carried out at a price of Rs 43.4 lakh. Addressing the press, the Speaker said, "The mechanised boats from Karaikal seized and attached by the Sri Lankan government are still in that country. Without their boats, the livelihoods of our fisherfolk are affected.

The Puducherry government will soon be forming a delegation helmed by Transport Minister S Chandira and me to work out plans and travel to Sri Lanka. We will meet the Sri Lankan government and request and retrieve Karaikal's mechanised boats with the approval of the Indian Government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi." Selvam also expressed hope that Union Minister of State of Fisheries L Murugan would join him and S Chandira Priyanga during their mission to retrieve the seized vessels.

Over the past several years, the Sri Lankan government has been seizing and attaching Indian trawlers mainly from Tamil Nadu and Karaikal for allegedly crossing IMBL and fishing in Sri Lankan waters. Puducherry Transport Minister S Chandira Priyanga, Karaikal South MLA AMH Najim, Neravy-TR Pattinam MLA M Nagathiyagarajan, officials from fisheries and PWD department, fisherfolk and panchayat representatives joined the Speaker in the groundbreaking ceremony.

According to the fisheries department, concrete cement flooring would be laid on the platform of the harbour over the next two months at the cost of Rs 32.8 lakh. The flooring, which spans about 17,500 square feet, will enable the movement and parking of vehicles at the harbour. Similarly, works to remove boulders from the navigation channel of the Arasalar River estuary would take place over the next month at the cost of Rs 10.4 lakh.

The boulders, which loosened from the enclosing breakwater structures into the navigation channel near the confluence point, has made the departure and return of mechanised boats difficult. The removal would ease vessel movement, the officials said. Both works of the fisheries department would be executed through the irrigation and public health division of the Puducherry PWD.