Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi
Udupi, Dec 2: “With priority given to cleanliness and safety in the harbours where fishing activities take place in the district, necessary precautionary measures should be taken to prevent any accidents,” deputy commissioner (DC) Dr K Vidyakumari instructed the officials.
She was presiding over a meeting on maintaining cleanliness and safety measures at the ports in the district held at the DC office on Friday December 1.
She said, “The contract for the management of fishing nets has already been given from 2019 to 2020,” and told the officials and the contractors that they should give more emphasis on cleanliness along with proper maintenance and take necessary precautions to avoid fire accidents.
She said that parking fee should be charged only from vehicles which are ancillary to fishing activities and instructed the contractors not to collect any kind of fee from other public transport vehicles.
She also said, “Recently, Gangolli fishing port suffered a huge amount of damage due to an accidental fire disaster. Necessary precautionary measures should be taken so that such cases do not recur. All necessary pre-preparations for fire fighting should be arranged in the port.
“Permission has been given to build wooden boats. However, there are complaints that some are building mechanized boats with the use of chemicals. Officials should to look into this,” she said.
The DC suggested that a proposal should be submitted to the government to open a fire fighting sub-station at Gangolli port and an action plan should be submitted for the purchase of modern fire fighting vehicles.
“Natural calamities are unpredictable. But if accidents occur due to man-made mistakes, the officials of the concerned departments will be held responsible and legal action will be taken against them under the Natural Disaster Management Act,” she said.
The department officials instructed the developers to prepare the required action plan on port management and take action on safety and other functions within the stipulated time.
Zilla panchayat chief executive officer Prasanna H, engineers of port department and other officials of various departments were present in the meeting.