Black flags on boats and homes: Pattinapakkam fishers say the Secretariat is being built on their promised land

Along the Marina Loop Road on Sunday, black flags went up where they would be hardest to ignore: on boats, fish stalls, net sheds and homes. Fishers from ten coastal villages in Pattinapakkam marched to oppose the state government proposal for a new Secretariat and Assembly complex at Foreshore Estate.

The demonstration, organised by the Mylapore Area All Fishermen Village Panchayat Council at the Mullikuppam Srinivasapuram Loop Road junction, demanded withdrawal of GO 564, which the council says sanctions the complex. A second protest at Srinivasapuram Beach drew hundreds, including women, with black flag processions, barricades and traffic diversions reported as the coastal protest widened from Ennore to Kovalam.

The council's claim is documentary, not rhetorical. It says land in Survey Nos. 4592 and 4593 was acquired through GO Ms No. 3313 dated October 10, 1957, exclusively for rehabilitation and long term housing of the fishing community. To divert that land to an administrative complex, the fishers argue, breaks the purpose of acquisition and assurances given over decades. One fisherman at the march put it plainly in reporting of the protest: the lands belonged to fishermen, were taken by the Housing Board on a promise of homes, and should be returned.

The government has said only a detailed project report process is under way for the Rs 1,200 crore, roughly 25 acre complex announced by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, with a government order on September 8, 2026 granting in principle approval. That clarification has not satisfied the villages. They cite state climate vulnerability assessments that, they say, show Mullikuppam remains relatively safe from sea level rise through 2050 and 2100, and they seek recognition as a fishermen residential zone under the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2019.

This is the second escalation in a week, after a September 29 agitation urging revocation. The pattern is familiar in Chennai: a community that was promised housing watches its shoreline reclassified for power. Whether the Secretariat rises or not, the government now has to answer a prior question in public: if land taken for fisher homes in 1957 is not for fisher homes in 2026, what was the promise worth?