Whenever the meteorological department issues alerts of heavy rain in the wake of a depression in the Arabian sea, fishermen such as M. Abdul Majeed and others on the Moosodi beach at Manjeshwar in Kasaragod have a sleepless night.
For the past two years, such alerts have portended a nightmare for them with houses being damaged or totally destroyed in the cyclone and the consequent sea erosion.
There has been no significant support from the government, except for a small compensation, which some of them have already used for paying the rent for the houses to which they have been forced to move following the disaster.
Riyaz, a fisherman here, who lost his house two years ago, received a compensation of ₹95,000. But since then, he has been living in a rented house with his family.
“I have finished the money paying the rent for the house, which is ₹5,000 per month. Now, we have lost all hope of receiving any help from the government”, he said.
Mr. Majeed, another fisherman, is forced to live at his brother’s house after his own dwelling collapsed in front of him during cyclone Tauktae earlier this year.
“My house was partly damaged in 2018, but in March this year, the seawater completely destroyed the house in front of us,” he said.
Except for empty promises of compensation by the government of paying ₹10 lakh for construction of a new house, they had received anything, he lamented.
After knocking on every door of government offices, he finally got a relief of ₹95,000 recently. But the officials had not still confirmed when the promised ₹10 lakh would be paid.
More than 10 persons now live in the house belonging Mr. Majeed’s brother. That house too is near the beach and the fear of waves taking away this house too constantly looms in their mind.
Till now, the Fisheries department has helped in constructing houses for only two fishermen who were affected prior to 2018. Another fisherman, who approached the court, received the complete compensation of ₹10 lakh. Many here lamented that they were not financially sound to approach the court against the inaction of the authorities.
However, P.V. Satheesan, Deputy Director of Fisheries Department, said they would allot the compensation to fishermen families if they identified a suitable land for constructing the house. Many of them had not identified such land while several others were not fishermen or were working in other places, including abroad, he said.
Mr. Satheesan said that the authorities were constructing flats for 140 families at Kozhipadi in Kumbala at a cost of ₹23 crore.
However, members of the fishermen community said there was an attempt to uproot them from their land. They alleged that flats were constructed to help people who had a vested interest in their land. They demanded that the fishing community be given the land near to the beach where they live now.
