NAGAPATTINAM: Even as intense efforts are on to pull ashore a deep-sea fishing vessel from Nagapattinam district that submerged off Kerala coast last week, the boat owner has alleged a lack of support from officials in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in retrieving it.
The boat owner's fellow fishermen in Nagore on Wednesday also resorting to a strike and demanding assistance in salvaging operations.
Alleging apathy by the district administration in Nagapattinam and Ernakulum and the Fisheries departments in the states to the submerged vessel after reportedly hitting the wreck of a sunken fishing vessel on September 30, residents of the Nagore fisherfolk panchayat staged the protest.
SP Yogamoorthy, a panchayat representative, said, "We would have lifted any boat out of the waters with the combined efforts of our fishermen and fishing boats had it sunk anywhere off the coast of Nagore and Kodiyakarai. But it sank on the other side of the country. The boat owner and his crew struggle with the herculean task of lifting the vessel weighing 10 tonnes. We demand the administration and the Fisheries departments to help them out immediately as assets worth over Rs 1.2 crores are at stake."
The fishers demanded authorities to have at least the Pamban bascule bridge near Ramanathapuram opened to send vessels with higher horsepower through Palk Strait to aid in salvaging operations off Kochi.
According to sources, the boat owned by Nagore fisherman S Aiyyappan was fishing in the Bay of Bengal until he, like most other Nagapattinam deep-sea vessel owners, decided to cross into the Arabian Sea, as it gets rough on the eastern side during the northeast monsoon. The boat, however, sank within a few nautical miles of leaving the Cochin fishing harbour.
The boat owner, fishermen said, had arranged for a vessel retrieving company from Thoothukudi to retrieve it out of the waters. The retrieving team has been trying to deploy large reinforced balloons under Aiyyappan's boat, inflate them and lift the boat out. Still, they are reportedly unable to find space underneath the sunken vessel. Attempts to pull the boat using four deep-sea vessels from Akkaraipettai, which had also gone fishing in the Arabian Sea, have also been futile, with them only managing to pull the nets out.
"We have been begging officials in Cochin and also the fishermen to help us out, but there is hardly any assistance. We incurred about `13 lakh in retrieving operations using balloons. But all our efforts are fruitless. We need high-speed vessels that can retrieve large vessels with high horsepower, which only the government can provide us with," said Aiyyappan's brother S Murugan.
When contacted, an official from the Fisheries department in Nagapattinam said, "We spoke to the Fisheries department in Ernakulum to support the efforts. Our counterparts in Kerala are, however, reluctant to help as the spot is a protected area belonging to the Cochin Port and its waters are risky, with a lot of perished vessels."