West Bengal invites private investment into fisheries

The West Bengal government is inviting private investment to develop fisheries in the state, a senior official said today.
The state has identified bigger waterbodies for the purpose, the state fisheries department official said.
The investment could be in the form of a joint venture or be solely private, Sumanta Chaudhuri, the Additional Chief Secretary of the Fisheries Department, said on the sidelines of an event here.
Chaudhuri said that the state government had last year adopted a policy to encourage private investment in the fisheries sector.
"The policy will encourage those willing to invest in the fisheries sector. There will be separate incentive for them... Capital subsidy, subsidy on the VAT, electricity duty," Chaudhuri said.

The official said that his department faced the same problem of inadequate cold storage and processing as like the agriculture and horticulture departments.

"So far there has been consumption-oriented production in West Bengal, but now we need to think in terms of the consumption, export, value-addition as well as the retail chain and that is very important," the official said.
Gopalakrishnan opined that open sea cage farming method
developed by CMFRI is one of the best farming models which could be effectively popularised among the fishermen community in the country.
"The mariculture sector will address the ever increasing demand for the quality seafood for human consumption and, to some extent, bridge the gap between demand and supply in marine fish production as the amount of wild caught fish remaining stagnant for the years and scope for increasing prosecution from capture sector is very little," he said.

The scientist said that mariculture can be considered as one of the best alternate livelihood options for the coastal fishermen community.
He said that the CMFRI, under the AINP, will focus on developing viable and farmer-friendly technologies for marine fish seed production and farming especially cage farming.
"The indigenous cage farming method developed by the CMFRI for the country is well received by the farmers of various coastal districts and economically feasible. National agencies on fisheries development is promoting these activities based on the inputs given by CMFRI through various incentives like subsidies and schemes," he said.
Gopalakrishnan stressed the need for formulating a suitable mariculture policy since the lack of which is a major hindrance to the commercialisation of the marticulture practises in India.

CMFRI will take steps to frame the policy. The institute will intensify the work on demarcation of potential mariculture sites along Indian coasts on a GIS platform, helping to prepare an adequate national policy for the development of mariculture activities inIndia," he said.
The representatives from all the maritime states presented their progress in the meeting.
The meeting discussed various mariculture activities initiated for various species at various maritime states.
Since the non-availability of marine finfish seed is a major challenge for mariculture, the AINP-M review meeting recommended for developing the hatchery technology for new species for farming and also conducting an extensive survey on the availability of natural seeds for cage farming and determining quotas and seasons for exploitation.

The meeting was attended by scientists from all the collaborating centres located in seven maritime states of the country.