Fisheries industry seeks farm sector status

NEW DELHI: The fisheries industry has sought policy intervention from the government to bring aquaculture at par with agriculture to enable the sector access to cheaper finance and other fiscal benefits.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the National Association of Fishermen has criticised the Planning Commission for ignoring fisheries which accounts for nearly 21% of total agriculture exports and where more than 6.7m people are dependent for their livelihood.

“Fish farmers are not getting the same concessions in income tax, water and power tariffs as the agriculture sector does, although aquaculture is recognised as part of agriculture by Nabard.

Therefore, policy intervention is required to treat aquaculture at par with agriculture,” association’s working chairman BS Chauhan has said in his letter to the PM.

Earlier, the association had suggested that the agriculture ministry should set up a development board for fisheries and work to achieve export target of Rs 20,000 crore by ‘11 up from the present level of Rs 6,800 crore.

According to Mr Chauhan, the ministry should raise the allocation for the sector to Rs 15,000 crore for the 11th plan period, up from the proposed Rs 3,000 crore.