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India wants to increase production from fisheries sector from the existing 10 million tonnes (mt) a year to 15 mt by 2020, according to a top official from the Union Agriculture Ministry.
Speaking on ‘Blue revolution: Integrated development and management of fisheries’ in Mangaluru on Tuesday, Aditya Kumar Joshi, Joint Secretary (Fisheries), Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries in the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, said that the Centre has set an outlay of ₹3,000 crore for the implementation of ‘blue revolution’ programme in the next five years.
Stating that the overall fish production in the country has crossed 10 mt with an annual growth rate of 6 per cent, he said the Centre intends to increase the production to 15 mt by increasing the annual growth rate to 8 per cent on a sustainable basis.
Importance has been given for marine and inland fisheries to achieve this growth, and also to strengthen and upgrade MCS (Monitoring, Control and Surveillance) centres along the coastal states.
In marine fisheries sector, the focus will be on upgrading technology and on developing and strengthening fisheries harbours and fish landing centres in the coastal areas of the country. Works on developing 19 fisheries harbours and 14 fish landing centres are in various stages in this regard.
The development of cold chains, fish processing centres, ice plants and marketing infrastructure will be part of this plan.
Referring to the inland fisheries, he said there is a need to increase the area of production as the country has good number of water bodies.
The productivity from inland fisheries should be increased from the existing 2.9 tonnes per hectare per year to six tonnes per hectare per year, he said.
The inland fisheries sector should also focus on sourcing quality seeds and quality fish feed to increase fish production in the country.
He said that MCS centres can play a major role in the registration of vessels and in issuing biometric identity cards to fishermen in the country.
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