Comments
With talks on disciplining global fisheries subsidies taking centrestage at the WTO, India has formed a taskforce to look into the position that the country needs to take to protect the livelihood of millions of small and marginal fisherfolk.
The taskforce, headed by the Department of Fisheries and comprising officials from the Commerce Ministry, is interacting with various coastal Sates on the matter, a government official told BusinessLine .
“The fisheries subsidy is a sensitive issue for our country as it involves a large number of livelihoods. It is important for the Centre and the States to work together on the matter so that all our concerns get covered. Our position has to be absolutely clear if WTO members work on an agreement in the ministerial meet next year,” the official said.
The total marine fisherfolk population in India is about 4 million, comprising 8,64,550 families, of which nearly 61 per cent are under the BPL category, according to the 2010 Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute Census, which is the latest. The nation has nine maritime States and two Union Territories.
The two areas that India needs to be careful about at the WTO are obligations related to containing illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing and getting special and differential treatment, said Abhijit Das of the Centre for WTO Studies.
“To get a clear idea of the extent of IUU, countries need to have a stock assessment in place, which is very difficult for a developing country. Before taking on any obligation, India has to ensure that it has scientific stock assessment,” said Das.
He also stressed that India needs to protect its ongoing schemes for marginal fisherfolk, such as subsidies for fishing boats, at the WTO through Special & Differential Treatment (S&DT) for developing countries. India, together with other WTO members, such as South Africa and other African, Caribbean and Pacific groups of countries, has been seeking effective S&DT for developing countries and LDCs, keeping in view their developmental needs, poverty reduction, livelihood and food security concerns, said Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a recent reply to the Lok Sabha.
Negotiations on fishery subsidies discipline, which had been on hold since 2011, restarted just prior to the Nairobi Ministerial Meeting in December 2015.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.