CHENNAI: After refusing to go for fishing following a day-long stand-off with fish traders, fishing trawlers at Kasimedu set sail on Friday.
However, with no resolution to their demand that traders should agree to sell fish through auction stall instead of their traditional market, trawler owners said they would sell their catch without the help of traders. As fish auction stall remains closed because of the stay obtained by the consortium of fish traders, trawlers plan to sell their catch near the auction stall.
Each trip fetches them fish worth `5-6 lakh, a major chunk of which is sent to other States. Arrangements for this are made without the help of their trader brethren. “It is the fish traders who have contacts with retailers in other States,” said K Bharathi of South Indian Fishermen Welfare Association.
While the earlier arrangement had worked well for both the parties, it was the state government’s proposal to utilise the fish export zone as a fish market that now has the two sections at logger-heads.
A leader from a fisherman association claimed that the trawler owners were under pressure to agree to the government’s proposal to convert the export zone into a fish market.
“The government is using the trawler owners to save them from criticism for using crores of money on a project that failed,” he alleged.
