Fishermen furious at Coast Guard action

KARWAR: The anchoring of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) interceptor vessel C-155 at Karwar commercial port has kicked up a row and various fishermen organisations have threatened to protest if the Coast Guard doesn't find an alternative place to anchor its ships.
At a meeting here, fishermen's leaders expressed the fear that the ICG, which has been trying to put up its station in a civilian area despite protests by people and fishermen of Karwar over the past five years, will go ahead with its plan.
Decrying the Coast Guard's move to anchor its ships at Karwar, fishermen's leader KT Tandel said it's surprising that the Coast Guard is doing this in a place already packed with fishing boats and cargo ships. In an emergency, ICG boats should reach the spot quickly but when they're parked here, it's very difficult for them to even come out of the port. The ICG should shift to the islands off Karwar port which are more convenient for security operations, he said.
Ganapati Mangre, chairman, Fisheries Federation, said the district administration had handed over about 1.5 acres of Karwar beach to the ICG and after protests, it shelved a plan to build its office in the civilian area.
'Project will cause inconvenience to people'
"They have enough space in the Seabird project in Karwar and the government has sanctioned land to ICG at Harwada -Amadalli port to build its office and jetty. Despite this, it tries to build an office on Karwar beach and any defence project in civilian area will cause inconvenience to the people of Karwar who have already sacrificed their land for Seabird," Ganapati Mangre, chairman, Fisheries Federation alleged.
Fishermen's leaders warned port authorities not to allow the ICG to anchor its vessel in the civilian port and said they'd launch an agitation. Leaders of ten different fishermen's organisations submitted a memorandum about this to the deputy commissioner.