BARISAL. Aug 7 : Thousands of fishermen of the coastal districts who suffered severe losses during the 1991 cyclone are yet to be rehabilitated.

According to sources, after the devastating cyclone of '91 a rehabilitation programme for thousands of cyclone affected fishermen of 12 districts of Patuakhali. Borguna, Bhola. Jh^lakathi. Plrojpur. Khulna. Bagerhat. Chittagong. Cox’s Bazar. Noakhali. Laxmipur and Chandpur had been taken with an estimated cost of Tk 110 crore. Financial assistance for this project was provided ,by the Japanese government.

The National Fishermen Cooperative Society Had taken the responsibility for implementing the project.

Under this project there were 906 fishermens' co-operative societies which were eligible for loans under the project.

It was decided that with this loan each group or cooperative society .will purchase

trawlers fishing nets and other necessary Qshish apparatus.

Taka 96 crore was allocated to purchase all these things and the rest of the amount was left for maintenance purposes.

Groups were formed with 10 to 12 fishermen from each district and sent to the office of the registrar for registration. As time passed allegations of mismanagement and corruption started to pour in.

Some non-fishermen formed fake groups and sent for registration to the concerned authority who were ultimatedly identified as not genuine fishermen from the area.

More, and more such 'fake fishermen' went for registration claiming their loan. This situation increasingly gave trouble In deciding who were the genuine ■ fishermen. Eventually, loan disbursement among the groups of the districts had to be' stopped.