All fishing boats venturing into the sea from the Andhra Pradesh coast need to obtain a licence from the Department of Fisheries in view of the increasing security threat from extremist forces, Joint Commissioner V. Suresh has said.
At a meeting of fisheries officials from the three North-coastal districts here Monday, he said that a special software was developed by the National Informatics Centre for the registration of all kinds of boats and vessels going out.
Appealing to all fishermen to obtain licence, he said biometric identification cards would be supplied to all the fishermen.
The Navy, the Coast Guard and the Marine Police would jointly be patrolling the coastline to stop any vessel going out of the ports/fishing jetties without licence from a cut-off date to be notified by the State government, he added. National Informatics Centre Regional Coordinator Aarif Ali and Joint Director, Fisheries, Sudarshan, were also present at the meeting. Officials would be taken to task if boats were allowed to ply without licence after the cut-off date, he observed.
