Over 12,000 families rendered jobless
An aerial view of the damaged APIIC after the Hudhud storm near Duvvada in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. (Photo:DECCAN CHRONICLE)
Visakhapatnam: While city folks in Vizag are reeling under power crisis along with shortage of a few essential commodities, Vizag’s fishing industry too suffered and those depending on it have lost their hope of survival due to the cyclone Hudhud. More than 12,000 families, who do business with a turnover of Rs1.5 crore a day, have been affected by the cyclone, directly or indirectly. Of the 700 mechanised boats in Vizag fishing harbour, over 400 have been damaged and around 70 have been rendered irreparable or sunk.
The damage inflicted on fishing harbour by the cyclone is estimated to be a whopping Rs70 crore.As the country-made boats are also not being operated after cyclone Hudhud, Vizagites have to wait at least one month to relish the quality sea food as fish supplies to market are expected only after four weeks.
“We had experienced several cyclones but we never expected that the cyclone Hudhud could blast Vizag and cause huge loss to industry,” said M. Ramudu, general secretary of AP Mechanised Fishing Boat Operators Associ-ation. Each mechanised boat costs around Rs25-30 lakh depending on length and capacity, he added.
President of the association P.C. Appa Rao said, “We aren’t sure how long it will take again to resume our fishing activities as most of the boats were damaged and find it difficult to get the ice and a few others for venturing (fishing) into Bay of Bengal. If power comes, it will take 10 days to limited operations and will take minimum one month for fullfledged venturing. The busy fishing harbour wore a deserted look and we requested Chief Minister Naidu to give us new boats or bear the cost to repair the damaged ones as the industry generates revenue in Vizag,” he added.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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