Stipulations on foreign fishing crew to be relaxed

NEW DELHI: Government is willing to further relax stipulations on foreigners working on deep-sea fishing trawlers to overcome the shortage of skilled labour in the country that has been impending tuna fishing.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said initially 75 per cent foreign crew was permitted on board tuna shipping vessels. Later this was relaxed to 85 per cent so that lack of trained crew does not become a hindrance in undertaking deep-sea fishing operations.

"We are willing to further relax stipulations on use of domestic labour on tuna fishing vessels," he said.

Pawar blamed lack of domestic skilled workers for only 20-22 tonnes fishing vessels operating in Indian waters as compared to thousands of such vessels of smaller nations in the region.

The Government, he said, has allowed Indian entrepreneurs to acquire tuna fishing vessels through imports.

"The major hurdles in proper exploitation of tuna and other species in our waters are lack of inadequate number of purpose-built fishing boats and lack of trained officers and crew in tuna fishing," he said.

Pawar said as per the production statistics maintained by the government, the fist production, which stood at about 23 lakh tonnes during 1990, grew to 27 lakh tonnes by 1995 and touched 29.9 lakh tonnes during 2002. Thereafter, the production has steadied at about 28-29 lakh tonnes except for a slight decline during the year that immediately followed tsunami.

Fish production dipped 5.51 per cent in 2004-05 to 27.79 lakh tonnes and posted a 1.33 per cent growth in 2005-06 to 28.16 lakh tonnes, he said.