More than half of 1.5 lakh people engaged directly or indirectly in aquaculture in Gujarat live in coastal areas of the state’s southern region. About 55,000 tonne shrimps were produced on 10 lakh hectare of land in Gujarat in 2017 which was 12% of the national production and generated a turnover of Rs2, 500 crore. Shrimp farming is done on 6.5 lakh hectare of land allotted by the state government under its 5 hectare per person scheme whereas the rest happens to be private parcels of land. Aqua farmers are hopeful that micro-financing issues would be sorted out soon and they too would get the benefit of Kisan Credit Card as fisheries and aquaculture had been growing at the rate of 7% per year. Dr Manoj Sharma, who does shrimp farming on 50 hectare land, said, “In the past, banks did not process loans if you did shrimp farming in mud land. The reason was that the effective value of such piece of land was considered zero by them. However, if shrimp farmers were to be given the benefit of Kisan Credit Card, it would become easier for them to get finance. If the Union Budget has extended the benefit of Kisan Credit Card to aqua farmers, it would give a boost to their business.” Velji Masani, chairman of Gujarat Fisheries Central Cooperative Association Ltd, said, “Our fishermen remain practically unemployed for four months during the off-season in the year. Thus, fishermen should be given priority in allotment of 5 hectare of mud land to do shrimp farming.”