NAGAPATTINAM, JANUARY 6 The smashed trawlers at Akkaraipettai are slowly beginning to tell a tale of hidden ownerships, which can complicate the compensation package being planned by the Tamil Nadu government.

The government’s promise is simple: it will compensate the fishermen who have lost their fishing craft and equipment. But when you try to find out who actually owned the vessels that the waves destroyed, a strange truth emerges.

Some 213 mechanised trawlers—each cost around Rs 15 lakh—were destroyed according to A Jaybal, chairman of the Nagapattinam Fishermen’s Panchayat Union. Only one of them was insured for Rs 15.16 lakh by the New India Assurance Company. And banks say they did not give any loans for boats.

So how did the poverty-stricken residents of this area raise the money for the 212 uninsured boats? Where did the money come from?

From powerful men who sit in Chennai, Tuticorin and elsewhere.

In other words, the men whom the government first thought it was helping are just labourers who are given about 20 per cent of their catch. And the registered owner, officials say, is usually a former fisherman too poor to own the boat but is running it on behalf of the real bosses—some had as many as five vessels registered in their names.

The real bosses, meanwhile, run their businesses from a distance.

When the compensation is doled out, it may eventually find its way not to the poor fishermen or even the registered owners but to these shadow figures.

‘‘We have taken note of this. The idea is that the affected fishermen should benefit. We will do the needful after the enumeration,’’ says M Veerashanmugha Moni, Collector of Nagapattinam.

This is not this town’s only dilemma though. Many of the 45,000 poor families no longer want to return to the areas where they lived earlier.

This comes from a mixture of fear and sentiments burning deep. ‘‘When the waves struck, they had to carry off, burn or bury their kin where their homes used to be. They say they can’t live over the remains of their own dead,’’ says a revenue official.

‘‘Some 7,000 families have already told us that they don’t want to go back to their old villages. We expect as many more to say that by the end of our survey,’’ said Shantasheela Nayar, state secretary for rural development, who is heading relief operations here.

But fisherfolk can’t stay too far from the sea. This means finding large chunks of land to settle them, some 300 to 500 metres away from their earlier hamlets. In many of these crowded coastal stretches, this could mean unsettling others, and friction.

‘‘We will approach temples, dargahs, individuals and every possible source to get the land. But it could be a problem if they don’t cooperate,” said Nayar.

Even offers from corporates bodies—like the Tatas, the TVS group and the CII— to adopt villages and rebuild them is being seen by the government as a potential landmine. ‘‘If one village is rebuilt better or worse than its neighbour, there will be serious trouble,’’ said a government source. As of now, the government wants to rebuild everything itself according to a uniform plan.

Less publicised is the tragedy of this district’s marginal farmers. The waves have destroyed about 2,600 hectares of farmlands growing paddy and other crops. The salt water has left much of this land unfit for growing anything now.

The LIC office here, meanwhile, faces a sad wait. Only some 1,800 of the fishermen along these coasts were insured, and the death toll is now well past 6,000. It has got only 261 claims so far, and has no idea if there will be more.