A Singapore-based Sri Lankan Tamil entrepreneur has suggested a few small-scale agro-based projects with Indian private sector investment to help the hard-pressed fishermen and farmers of the North and East.
Taking into consideration the travails of the North Sri Lankan fishermen who have not been able to get their legitimate share of fish in the northern waters, Singapore-based Lankan entrepreneur S.Niranjan Nanthagopan has suggested an alternative source of income for them. He proposes sea weed growing.
Hundreds of intruding South Indian bottom trawlers fish in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka on a daily basis, sometimes a kilometer away from the Sri Lankan shore.
It is said that they take away 40% of the fish on the Sri Lankan side of the international maritime boundary. They also destroy hundreds of Sri Lankan fishing nets. Despite arrests and seizure of their vessels, the Indian fishermen continue to intrude and indulge in banned forms of fishing.
Entrepreneur, Nanthagopan, who is an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad said that it was time the Sri Lankan fishermen considered alternatives to fishing.
Asked about the sea cucumber project being done with Chinese investment, he said that it is unsuited to the area and that sea weed growing will be better.
“Sea Weed growing and harvesting is an ideal project for coastal areas of the Sri Lankan North and East which have calm and low tidal waves specially in the westers along Mannar, Jaffna and Eastern Sri Lanka,” he said.
Furthermore, fishermen who live in these areas often clash with Indian fishermen for sharing the resources available naturally. “The sea weed growing project, set up with Indian support, will help harmonize the relationship between the fishermen of the two countries,” Nanthagopan suggests.
According to him, a Bengaluru-based Company “Sea6 Energy” is keen to develop this project with Lankan fishermen’s participation. The project will include the establishment of a processing unit in Jaffna at a cost of about INR 5 ~ 10 crores (US$ 610,000 to US$ 1.2 million). The processing unit will be producing at least 100 mt per month.
About 300 local families could join the project. Each farmer would require about INR 60,000 (US$ 731) worth of material to develop the seaweed farm.