Protest at Chellanam fishing harbour |
The National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), which called for a nation-wide protest on October 30, 2018 against the proposed shipping corridor, has claimed “massive turnout” of thousands of fishermen and general public in several Indian states.
In Kerala, KV Thomas, MP, inaugurated the protests, while in Maharasthra various fishing unions rallied for livelihood and opposed the government’s “one sided notification”, even as Mahadev Janker, Minister of Cattle and Dairy Development, Fisheries, attended the protests and heard the fishing communities’ demands.
In Goa, fishermen burned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effigy, pointed towards what their leaders called “disastrous effects of the Blue Economy, including the Sagarmala project”. In West Bengal, fishing unions submitted a memorandum outlining their fears and listing their demands to the concerned Ministry. Odisha and Tamil Nadu also saw a turnout of hundreds of fishermen standing in solidarity with each other and against the proposed shipping corridor, NFF said in a statement.
Protest at Konark, Odisha |
The main places where protests took place were: Gujarat (Kutch, Porbandhar, Veraval), Maharashtra (Mumbi Port, Ratnagiri and Malvan), Goa (Vasco fishing harbor), Karnataka (Mangalore, Karvar, Malppe harbours); Kerala (Kochin port, Chellanam harbour, Vizhinjam harbor), Tamilnadu (Colachal, Thengapattanam, Muttam, Chinnamuttam and Nagapattinam harbours and Ramnadu), Andhra Prathesh (Guntur Bapatla); Odisha (Bhubaneswar Rajbhavan), and West Bengal (Contai and Diamond harbour).
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