To push fish production, the Indian government is formulating a programme to tap water reservoirs and neglected water bodies such as wetlands for breeding through modern technologies.
The programme, part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a Blue Revolution, entails Rs 1,800 crore over the next five years, much lower than what was envisaged by a working group on the 12th Five-Year Plan.
The plan had projected an investment of Rs 6,000 crore to achieve an average six per cent annual growth in fish production during its tenure, 2012-13 to 2016-17. The Centre’s projected investment is 30 per cent of this.
A Cabinet note on the proposal could soon be moved by the department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries, part of the agriculture ministry. The financial part of the programme has been almost tied up, a senior official said.
Officials said a big thrust in the programme would be on using untapped water resources for breeding inland fish and making available quality fish feed to fishers. India has vast untapped water resources in the form of rivers and canals (0.2 million km), floodplain lakes (2.9 million hectare), ponds and tanks (2.4 million hectare), reservoirs (2.9 million hectare) and brackish water (1.1 million hectare).
Training fishers in new technologies would be a key part of the programme, including cage culture.
India’s current production of quality fish seed is far lower than the demand. Traditional fish feed made from rice bran oil and cakes is not high-yielding, an official said.
India’s total fish production in 2014-15 was estimated to be 10.07 million tonnes (mt), comprising 6.58 mt of inland and 3.49 mt of marine fishery. With 5.6 per cent of global production and 2.5 per cent of world trade in fish, India is one of the world’s largest in the sector.
The big problem with all these programmes is that funds are channelised through the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB). The cooperative sector, which engages around three million fishermen and is in direct contact with them is neglected, B K Mishra, managing director of the National Federation of Fishers Cooperatives, told Business Standard.
He said if the Centre wanted to actually make a difference to the lives of millions of fisherfolk, it should actively engage with the cooperative sector. Fisheries contributed Rs 67,913 crore to gross domestic product (at current prices) in 2009-10, about one per cent of the total and 5.4 per cent of total agricultural GDP. Indian Livestock Census, 2003, said the sector engaged around 15 million people, of which 75 per cent are engaged in inland fishery.
Though India’s overall fish production has shown a steady rise in recent years, the sector suffers from low-scale, stagnating yields of inland and freshwater aquaculture, and poor infrastructure for marine fishery, leading to an estimated 15-20 per cent post-harvest loss.
P Krishnaiah, former chief executive of NFDB, said India had not realised the potential of deepwater sources, while over-exploiting its shallow water resources.
In the inland fisheries sector, focus should be on technologies like cage cultivation in reservoirs. In exports, the thrust should be on value-added products, he said.
2015 Business Standard