New debt relief commission for fishermen

KOCHI: In what could be a huge relief for thousands of debt-ridden fishermen in the state, the state government has decided to form a new Debt Relief Commission for them with a three-year term.The Fishermen’s Debt Relief Commission’s term  ended on January 21 after a period of three years starting from January 22, 2009. And the decision to form a new commission was taken after more than 55,000 applications for loan waiver were found pending. The commission was to waive the pending loans availed of by fishermen till 2007.A new commission will now be set up to look into the pending cases. “The bill has been passed by the Assembly. A new commission will be set up immediately. The decision was taken after considering the large number of applications that are pending. One of the drawbacks with the functioning of the earlier commission is that there is no cut-off date for the submission of applications. This time we have  fixed January 31 as the cut-off date,” said Excise and Ports Minister K Babu.A large number of fishermen’s organisations  like the Kerala Independent Fish Workers Federation have been protesting against the pending applications. “It is good news for the fishermen. We hope all the applications will be considered immediately. One of the problems with keeping the applications pending is that fishermen tend to wait for the response and there will be a delay in paying back their loans. This has led to the accumulation of debt. So the earlier the applications are considered the better”, said the state president of Kerala Independent Fishworkers’ Federation T Peter.  During the course of three years the Fishermen’s Debt Relief Commission had recommended waiving of Rs 380 crore after considering over 2 lakh applications.Apart from the pending cases, a total of 5153 cases recommended by the last commission is pending for the government’s approval.