The Kerala Fisheries Coordination Committee, a joint forum of fishers and other stakeholders, have said they will put up a united front of resistance against the proposal by the Union government to mine the sea off the Kerala coast for minerals and sand.
The general convener of the coordination committee P.P. Chithrajan said that the opposition to sea mining will find its first public expression in a day-long hartal onFebruary 27. The trade unions appealed to the fishers community and other stakeholders to work to make the public protest visible to all and make it a success.
Ahead of hartal
Ahead of the February 27hartal, the fishers leaders will meet at Njarakkal and Manassery in Ernakulam district on February 14 to discuss the finer details of the protest. There will be publicity rally on February 20, which will be inaugurated by Munambam Santhosh. The publicity rally is slated to end at Mazhikaparambil in Chellanam coastal panchayat on the same day.
The fishers’ union also said that a State-level convention of the coordination committee will be held in Kollam on February 17. A parliamentary march will be organised by the stakeholders on March 10. Deep sea mining had been recommended reportedly after the Geological Survey of India identified significant quantities of sand deposits along the Kerala coast.
Convener of the coordination committee Charles George alleged that the permission being granted to private companies for sea mining is a move to turn what is common property into private property. He said that the fishers’ community and other coastal stakeholders had successfully resisted a move to grant licence to large fishing vessels after the B. Meenakumari Committee recommended it.
The seven-member Meenakumari panel reviewed India’s deep-sea fishing policy and was chaired by B. Meenakumari, Deputy Director General of Fisheries, Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
Spontaneous protests
There have been spontaneous protests against the move to licencedeep sea mining. The Kerala State Matsya Thozhilali Federation (an independent union of traditional fishers) had staged a protest on Kollam beach last week against the decision to launch deep-sea mining.
Published – February 09, 2025 06:27 pm IST