more-in Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy has blamed the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) for delay in dredging the sea mouth at the Thengaitthu fishing harbour and said that it should compensate the fishermen for loss of livelihood. Speaking to reporters here on Saturday, he said that the dredger belonging to the DCI had suffered a breakdown within days of its use. The DCI should either replace the dredger on its own or use the one the government would provide from Karaikal. The government had entrusted the work of desilting the sea mouth and approved an expenditure of ?14 crore. Since DCI is a government undertaking, no tender system was adopted to assign the work. But the dredger has suffered a breakdown and fishermen had been facing a critical situation as they could not operate the fishing vessels due to accumulation of silt. Referring to Karaikal, Mr. Narayanasamy said that drought was at its peak in the region and farmers and farm labourers were totally hit because of monsoon failure. Karaikal region depends upon Cauvery River but with no water and monsoon failure it was setback , he said. “We have sought relief of ?100 crores from the Centre towards drought relief and a resolution was adopted on the floor of the Legislative Assembly recently. The government has also requested the Centre to depute a Central team to assess the impact of the drought in the Union Territory.” The Chief Minister said that he along with his cabinet colleagues had also met the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Agriculture Minister seeking immediate release of drought relief. The government would enter into an agreement with the Chennai Port Trust in a week’s time for handling of cargo here. The agreement would help bring containers from Chennai Port through small barges to the port here and move the consignment to the intended destinations by road. The port would handle 4 lakh Metric Tonnes of cargo per annum. Union Minister for Road Transport and Shipping Nitin Gadkari had given the nod for inking the agreement.

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