Rs. 3,000-cr. plan to enhance socio-economic life of fishermen

Union govt. has envisaged ‘Blue Revolution’ to be implemented in the nextfive years

Blue Revolution, a scheme envisaged by the Union government and to be implemented at a cost of Rs. 3,000 crore during the next five years, seeks to create an enabling environment for the socio-economic development of fishermen in the country, Aditya Kumar Joshi, Joint Scretary (Fisheries), Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying, and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, has said.

Mr. Joshi was speaking on the concluding day of a two-day national seminar on ‘Adoption of space technology for fisheries’ organised by the department here on Tuesday. He said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs recently gave the approval for the implementation of the umbrella scheme for the integrated development and management of fisheries.

Six components

The scheme covers development and management of inland fisheries, aquaculture, marine fisheries, including deep sea fishing, mariculture and all the work undertaken by the National Fisheries Development Board. Mr. Joshi said that the scheme had six broad components, NFDB and its activities; development of inland fisheries and aquaculture; development of marine fisheries, infrastructure and post-harvest operations; strengthening of database and geographical information system of the fisheries sector; institutional arrangement for fisheries sector and monitoring, control and surveillance and other need-based interventions. The last three components would be implemented by the department with complete Central unding, he added.

Approach

He said that the scheme aimed at a focussed and integrated approach for development and management of the sector to ensure a sustained annual growth rate of 6 per cent to 8 per cent against the overall annual growth of about 4 per cent during the 11th Five Year Plan period. It focuses mainly on increasing the production and productivity from aquaculture and fisheries resources, both inland and marine.

Mr. Joshi noted that the entire fisheries sector, covering about 14.5 million fishermen, would get benefited by the scheme. It would also benefit other stakeholders such as fish farmers, fisheries entrepreneurs, fish retailers, wholesalers, fish processors, fish exports and women groups amongst others.