The Fisheries Department is eagerly awaiting the formulation of guidelines for the Prime Minister’s Matsya Sampada Yojana, an integrated fisheries development scheme announced by the Central government recently.
The ambitious scheme with an estimated investment of ₹ 20,050 crore consists of the Central and State governments’ share as well as beneficiary contribution. Accordingly, the scheme envisaged augmenting fish productivity at sustained average annual growth of nine per cent to achieve the target of production of over 20 million metric tonne within five years.
Senior officials of Fisheries department said the scheme was aimed at creating critical infrastructure including modernising and strengthening of value chain that would generate at least employment potential of 15 lakh direct jobs. The Telangana government, which was mainly relying on inland fishing, had initiated several programmes in the past three years to augment productivity as fishing industry is placed among the growth engines in the State.
The government had been constantly releasing fishlings and shrimp (fresh water scampi) into close to 16,000 water bodies including major reservoirs as part of the efforts. This is in addition to ₹ 750 crore spent on providing vending units, nets, life jackets and setting up model fish markets.
As a result of the efforts, the fish and shrimp yield which was less than 1.6 lakh metric tonne prior to 2016-17 has almost doubled in the past three years and crossed three lakh metric tonne mark by the end of the previous financial year. Available provisional figures indicated that the yield crossed 3.1 lakh metric tonne and the final figures would be available after harvesting comes to an end before the commencement of the monsoon.
With the announcement of the new scheme by the Centre, the department said it was geared up for absorbing any project funding that would come from the Matsya Sampada Yojana and proposals would be submitted to the Centre accordingly to avail the subsidy that would form part of the scheme. “We are awaiting the detailed guidelines to be issued. We are ahead of several States in terms of creating the required eco system for fishermen from the harvesting stage to market,” a senior official told The Hindu .
