 Paharverkada is an area located adjacent to Chennai and is surrounded by a lake and the sea. The residents of this area are mainly dependent on fishing for their livelihood. Even as Chennai and the entire Tamil Nadu state continues to reel under the pandemic, this area has been officially declared a corona-free zone. But the day-to-day life of the residents has been deeply affected by the consecutive lockdowns. Newsclick reports from the ground. We are not allowed to sell fish and fish. We were asked to buy and sell fish for the first time. We are not allowed to sell fish. We are only allowed to sell fish. We believe in this and live for it. We can eat fish if we buy it. We will be left out if we sell it. We are not allowed to work or pay for it. One day, they came with a bag of food. They had given us a biryani for 10 days. The women were going to the church to drink biryani. They were carrying a bag of food and they were carrying a bag of nails. We had a good family. We didn't use the biryani for the first time. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't use the biryani for the first time. The food was superb 3 months ago. It was very tasty. It was very good for us. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. We didn't come to the big city. Basically, from this area, 80-90% of the people are only going to the fishing. Only 10% of the people are going to the nearby company. In this pandemic, they are also affected. Also, the fishermen are so suffered without selling the fishes in the market. The buyers also will not export the fishing to other states and districts. So, a lot has suffered in this COVID-19. News click spoke to Mr. Xavier Benedict, a lagoon researcher at Paraveer Garden. My opinion can be targeted only for the Phyllicate lagoon fishermen. My concern is Phyllicate lagoon fishermen are located around 19 km from the mainland. So, the lockdown has given them a bigger trouble than anything else in the past tsunami or any other crisis. The reason is, suddenly the corona crisis pandemic came in and the government announced the lockdown. Nobody expected how the future will be and nobody had any kind of savings. The government gave some money as a subsidy but I don't think that will be enough for this fishermen. The main issue with the lagoon, particularly the Phyllicate region is that the fisherman doesn't have any other access. At least in cities, people can go for other employment. The fisherman doesn't have any other access to this. That's applicable to all the non-urban areas where the fishermen are located. So, this is a major concern. Another is when the agriculture is not banned, why not fishermen? Fishermen doesn't have any major issues. The government could be in the sea and provide a long, big range so there is no one-to-one contact or a social contact. So, definitely the spreading of the disease is not a concern. The only concern the government is putting forward is the sale of the fish. That could have been easily done in a different method. The government could have procured the fishes and sold the things by online sale or anything. But maybe the government doesn't have much of infrastructure so we can't blame them also. But the entire three or four months of pandemic lockdown, they have put into a lot of hardship. Now, to come back from the hardship, they have to struggle a lot because they have got the money from the people who give it on a speed of interest and who carry around for every 1000 rupees, 100 rupees per day. So, that is why they have put a lot of hardship on the lagoon fishermen, particularly Pliquat Redi and this same whole school for non-urban fishermen. So, this is the main concern. The government could have handled the very easily this kind of crisis when the agriculture was in full support from the government. Why not fishing? They should have easily carried on because it is the second largest population next to the agriculture industry. So, they could have easily taken a precaution on this. Anyway, we learned this pandemic but from the July 6th, sales have started but there is no adequate sales happening so they are not getting good income. The government should come with new innovative ideas of selling it online or making a distribution through Twiggy or Junso. I would not say the fishing industry is supporting majorly. The government is least interested in fishing industry because fishermen don't pay taxes like other white collar jobs. But fishing is the biggest and cheapest protein food chain in our country. Next to agriculture, I would say fish is the most safest. So, they should have taken a fish. Fishermen's life is purely dependent on the sea. They can't go to any other job just like that because they are learning in the process of saving, storing the fish are more complicated than your agriculture produce. So, that needs to be taken care of. Around 40,000 residents in this area are predominantly dependent on fishing, seafood marketing, retail sales and related jobs. The complete lockdown in Chennai and nearby districts banning meat and fish sale made this community stand still for a while. The sudden declaration of lockdown without alternate measures pushed them into a deep crisis. The community is paying the cost of their life for the mismanagement of the government.