MARGAO: The traditional fishing community of Cutbona and Betul have expressed their dismay with the Fisheries Department as work on the breakwater facility at the mouth of River Sal has not yet started.
The local fishermen, who have been complaining about the hardships they have had to face for the last five years, had recently protested over the delay on the State government’s side in starting the work on this facility.
The breakwater facility system, as explained by Vinay Tari, president of Cutbona Fisheries Co-operative Society, will address the challenges the fishermen face in accessing the hostile navigational channel into the sea.
He added this facility would help both the mechanised and non-mechanised boat owners as it would provide them with safer conditions to carry out their fishing work.
Betul-based fishermen pointed out that the breakwater facility would also help boats return back safely.
They said they feel let down as they had earlier hoped that the facility would be completed within months but it now appears that the work itself won’t begin any time soon.
It may be recalled that the traditional fishermen as well as the trawler owners had held a meeting in Cutbona with the Benaulim AAP MLA Venzy Viegas and Velim MLA Cruz Silva.
While Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had given verbal assurance to Viegas that work would start soon, Silva was supposed to take a delegation of fishermen and trawler owners to meet the Chief Minister on this issue after Ganesh Chaturthi.