Govt to give Rs 1 cr subsidy to seafood processing units

NEW DELHI: Government said today it will extend a subsidy of Rs 10 million to around 200 seafood processing units to instal testing kits for antibiotics in view of a threat by the European Union to impose controls on marine exports from India.
"We have taken a decision that 200 seafood procesing units will be provided subsidy for mandatory installation of quick testing kit for antibiotics, which will cost Rs 1 crore," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Rajiv Pratap Rudy told PTI.
Rudy said India would also soon purchase three High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC) with Mass Spectrophotometer at a cost of Rs 42 million to improve the quality of detection and prevent contamination.
These measures are part of a mutli-pronged strategy to ensure compliance of Indian marine exports with EU standards, since EU has threatened to introduce control measures due to repeated case of contamination of a chemical nature detected in Indian sea food consignments exported to the EU, he said.
A total number of 33 cases of complaints had been recieved from EU since January this year, he said adding that it had also been decided that all units for which there had been even one complaint by EU would be put under consingnment-wise inspection.
Rudy said India exports Rs 6,000 crore worth of marine products of which around 30 per cent is to the EU.