Discontent is brewing among fish workers and boat owners over the decision to shut down the Munambam fishing harbour for seven days from Saturday, in the face of a surge in COVID-19 cases in the region.
The decision taken collectively by the district administration and Health and Fisheries departments has been conveyed to the Munambam Harbour Management Society. The harbour, which reopened after the trawling ban just about a fortnight ago, will remain closed at least until September 11, after a fish dealer at the harbour tested positive recently.
“The shutdown will take a heavy toll on the livelihood of fish workers and boat owners who have already suffered from the lockdown and inclement weather. Rather than closing the harbour down for a week, it could have been reopened after disinfection in a couple of days as was done in the case of a harbour at Kollam. That way, fish workers could have ventured out to sea and returned in time for the opening of the harbour. It would also have kept the workers, who had already been cleared by RT-PCR tests, safe from potential infection,” said P.P. Gireesh, chairman of Matsya Mekhala Samrakshana Samithi, a collective of stakeholders related to fishing from the Vypeen-Munambam region.
However, the Fisheries Department authorities pointed out that the situation was different at the Kollam harbour where the number of infected and test positivity rate were not as bad as at Munambam. “As of Friday, 21 have tested positive in Munambam, out of which 17 were found to be working at the harbour. So a closure of two or three days for disinfection is of little use. According to the Health Department, the harbour should be shut down for a minimum of seven days and that may even have to be extended if the infection does not show a declining trend,” said a senior Fisheries Department official.
A meeting chaired by the local MLA on Friday asked the authorities concerned to adopt stringent measures to check the spread of the disease.
Health authorities said permitting fishing boats to venture out to sea during the closure of the harbour defeated the purpose of checking the spread, considering that each boat employs around 10-15 workers. They also shared concerns over a potentially infected employee turning critical when the boat was away from the shore.