The Hon. Ramalingam Chandrasekar

¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, our response is this. I must note — the Hon. Member has come dressed in black today; I do not know why. We gave him kerosene subsidies twice. Perhaps he is angry because he did not get it the third time. However, the stake-net industry has not collapsed. They have resumed operations and are fishing. Only the use of winches and tractors has been stopped, Hon. Member. You yourself signed and approved their use earlier. But you did not conduct a good study, nor obtain a proper environmental report, nor a 110% chart. Without any of that, you gave approval. When granting, you knew the permitted set length was 1.5 km. But now they are setting 6, 8, even 10 km. We have over 5,000 small boats whose lives are in serious danger, and the environment is also seriously harmed. Taking all that into account, we held discussions with them six months ago and informed them that this would be stopped and to find alternatives. We are now in discussions with them; the President is also involved. Going forward, we will consider whether we can limit SND to about “60858” or introduce alternative methods where feasible. Otherwise, we will put in place procedures to continue the traditional industry appropriately.