Within a day of revising their fishing hours from 24 to 14 hours fearing the Sri Lankan navy, the Indian fishers at Rameswaram backtracked on their decision and decided to stick on to their regular schedule.

Mechanised boats at Rameswaram fishing harbour will enter sea on a 24-hour schedule from early morning to next day morning. It was decided to cut the trawling duration to 14 hours from last Saturday based on a resolution taken during the association meeting. The now-nixed move was taken to reduce the prolonged hours in sea and the resultant risk of crossing IMBL where Indian fishermen were caught by Sri Lankan Navy. However, after abandoning their revised schedule, the fishers ventured into the sea by early morning on Monday.

The main reason for the withdrawal of the previous decision was due to lack of labour, the fishermen said. On Saturday afternoon, confusion prevailed over in Rameswaram jetty as many fishermen who are not used to go fishing in afternoon ended up in drunken brawls. “We have to withdraw our decision because the fishermen could not cope with the changed schedule and unwanted brawls resulted that day,” said B Jesuraja, district secretary of Tamil Nadu Mechanised Boat Fishermen Association.

“The fishermen booze the previous night and start to sea on early morning as per the prevailing custom. When the timing was changed, they started boozing in the day and refused to go fishing later in the afternoon. We have to anchor most of the boats due to the non-availability of the fishermen on Saturday,” rued a boat owner.

But the fishermen were warned by their associations not to venture beyond the IMBL as they started their work on Monday. “We have instructed our men not to venture beyond the IMBL and stray in Sri Lankan waters. We have not anticipated such kind of trouble when we revised the schedule,” Jesuraja added. (TNN)