After 81-day break, fishermen venture into sea with high hopes

Thiruchirapalli

According to the fishermen, as per the agreement at the fishermen panchayats, the mechanised boats are allowed to venture into sea on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday while the country boats are allowed on the remaining days. However, owing to the lockdown due to COVID 19, they were not for fishing since March 23 this year and the annual fishing ban also was in place between April 16 to June 15 and after the repeated representations, the government allowed the fishermen to venture into sea from June 1. But there was no positive signal from the exporters as they had no orders from the buying countries and so the traders were not in a position to purchase fishes. This forced the fishermen to keep away from sea for the period of 13 days.

Meanwhile, based on the agreement arrived among the fishermen associations, the fishermen from Pudukkottai, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam decided to venture into sea from June 13 (Saturday).

Subsequently, the fishermen from the coastal districts started venturing into sea from Saturday. The fishing harbours in the region witnessed buzzing with activities from Saturday morning hours. The boats that went on Saturday are expected to reach by Sunday. Since the fishermen venture into sea after a long gap, they expect a good catch, said Thanjavur district Mechanised Boat Owners Association General Secretary A Thajudeen.