Mangalore, Jul 19: (TNN) Peeved at the New Mangalore Port (NMP) for not allowing their boats to be berthed inside the port and unload their catch during bad weather in the monsoon months, the Purse-Siene Fishermens Association has requested the district administration to help them out in the matter.

In a memorandum submitted to the deputy commissioner V Ponnuraj, the association members said that allowing their vessels to be berthed inside the port during emergency and bad weather in the monsoon months of August and September will prevent loss of valuable life and property. They said when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the port, she had urged the port to allow fishermen to use the port as they had sacrificed their land for the port.

They pointed out that they could not use the old port as the sand bar was preventing them from going for fishing from August 1 and hence the usage of NMP berths should be allowed.

NMP officials told TOI that they have always helped fishermen in times of emergencies and distress, provided they get communication from deputy director of fisheries that the distressed vessel belongs to this area. "Otherwise we cannot allow due to security and commercial reasons," the official told TOI.

The NMP officials point out the local country boat fishermen continue to use the beach between Berth 1 and 2, as also these fishermen have biometric cards and are easily identified.

"Whereas in case of multi-day fishing vessels, they cannot berth on the beach like country boats (between Berth 1 and 2) and giving them our berths will hamper commercial operations. Security is another issue as multi-day fishing vessels have fishermen who are not identified and dont possess bio-metric cards, which poses a security hazard," the official noted.

Another reason the NMP officials are not willing to give berth to multi-day fishing vessels is as berths 9 to 12 handle vessels with hazardous cargo like LPG, naptha, ATF in. Here only fire-proof vessels with spark arrestors are berthed. "Imagine a scenario if that area catches fire due to a non fire proof vessel entering the area," observed the official.

The NMP officials have annual meetings with local fishermen (country boats) where leaders assure officials that there will be no mischief from their part and they will not stray into an unauthorized area like oil terminal. Moreover country boats end their operations in 12 hours starting at 6 am. "We cannot allow operations beyond this time, again due to security reasons. Multi-day fishing vessels cannot follow all these rules, hence its difficult to give into their request," the official said.