Fishy business

Nagapattinam, Feb. 20: The scheme to rehabilitate tsunami-hit fishermen by replacing their boats is in place but those affected are unwilling to take a chance.

Not a single fisherman in this worst-hit Tamil Nadu district or in Cuddalore or Kanyakumari is ready to avail of the scheme that Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announced last month.

He had urged the fishermen to walk into the nearest bank branch and apply for loan from February 1. But the sticking point is ?how much subsidy or grant can the government give??

The Centre had decided to subsidise or give grant up to 35 per cent of a mechanised wooden trawler?s cost (worth up to Rs 20 lakh, including all accessories) and provide loan for the rest.

The fishermen are not impressed. ?There is no way we can take a huge loan and repay it when our assets have been wiped out. It is misleading now to look at former owners of mechanised boats or trawlers as rich,? said Ravi, a fisherman in Keechankuppam.

The banks, too, are facing a dilemma though they have been asked to go ahead with the scheme named after Rajiv Gandhi. There is an ?unresolved impasse as to who will provide us the subsidy part ? the Centre or the state?, said G. Jayachandran, senior regional manager, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), the ?lead bank? in Nagapattinam.

The confusion arises from the state?s protest against the finance minister?s ?unilateral? announcement of the scheme and the subsequent ?revision? to route the subsidy through the state instead of direct disbursal via banks.

Ravi said most fishermen want ?a 100 per cent grant? as the ?insurance premium alone that we have to pay (for the mechanised boats) under this scheme works out to Rs 3.20 lakh per annum, which is just beyond us?. ?Our season,? he said, ?is for seven months a year. Even if there is a good catch, our surplus for a year averages Rs 40,000.?

District collector J. Radhakrishnan agreed that the insurance premium was ?substantial? and needed to be addressed by the Centre and the state.

A section of the fishermen also complained that some banks were unwilling to give them loans if their compensation cheques (Rs 1 lakh each from the state and the Centre), received for loss of lives in each family, had not been deposited with that individual bank.

The bankers refuted the charge that they linked loans under the Rajiv Gandhi scheme to deposits the fishermen had to make first.

?On the contrary, without insisting on any prior deposit, we have disbursed consumption loans up to Rs 3,000 each to about 800 affected fishermen,? said S. Vijaya Kumar, manager (development), State Bank of India, Nagapattinam.

The IOB said nearly Rs 2 crore had so far gone out of banks alone to the fishermen.

Their situation is particularly grim in Nagapattinam as officials admit that 983 of the district?s 1,200-odd mechanised boats ? the lifeline of an industry that contributes substantially to foreign exchange through fish exports ? are ?fully damaged?.