Central Government to invest Rs 25,000 crore in 5 years to revamp fishery infrastructure

With the objective of achieving the real goals of the ambitious Blue Revolution project, the Union Government has lined up Rs25,000 crore investments in different sectors of fisheries in the next three to five years.

“We are looking at three types of support by way of infrastructure development in harbours; extending subsidies to joint venture projects to set up hatcheries/nurseries/quarantine facilities as well as viability gap funding to establish processing plants, cold chain facilities at harvest or landing sites, said Rajni Sikhri Sibal, Secretary, Department of Fisheries.

As inland fisheries contribute only 50 per cent of the total fish production, the Government intends to outspread its potential by covering reservoirs, wetlands, rivers and streams in different parts of the country. “We are planning to promote cold water fisheries in the entire Himalayan region to rear high value fishes. We will soon sign a MoU with Iceland and Denmark to breed trout fish, a high value variety. We have already signed an MoU with Norway in this regard,” she said.

Considering the low contribution of inland water fisheries, the Government looks to increase its production to six million tonnes from three million tonnes in the next three to four years. To achieve the target, she said quality seed, quality feed, aquatic animal health laboratories, quarantine facilities are a major requirement.

The Fisheries Secretary was interacting with BusinessLine on the sidelines of Aqua Aquaria India 2019 at Hyderabad.