Chennai, June 15(BPNS)

Even as the fishing ban in Tamil Nadu has ended on Monday midnight, less fishing boats are likely to venture into the sea for deep-sea fishing. Around 1200 fishing boats are attached to the Kasimedu Fishing harbour and only about 350 boats are likely to venture out into the sea on Tuesday.

Officials with the fishing, harbour said that most of the fishing boats require maintenance and repair and hence most will not venture out to sea. Most of the boats will complete the maintenance works and take to the sea in a fortnight, officials said.

Another issue which is facing the fishing harbour and fishermen is that there is no money for maintenance as most of the fishermen have not been working since lockdown commenced.

Most of the fishermen who frequent the fishing boats of Kasimedu market are from Andhra Pradesh and Odisha and a large number of these fishermen have left for their home states following lockdown and lack of jobs.

At present the wholesale fish stalls of the Kasimedu market are functioning and with the lockdown getting lifted the retail market will also be opened as the fishermen community is expecting a government announcement on the opening of the retail market soon.

Rajesh Thomas, a software engineer with an MNC while speaking to BPNS said, “ We were regulars at the Kasimedu market where most of the Chennai populace go to purchase fish. However, the market was shut down and fish was a rarity and we expect things to be normal maybe in a week’s time.”

The market will be buzz once the number of fishing boat ventures out into the sea increases and even if a boat goes into the deep sea, it will return back in more than a week’s time, and then only the market will normalize.