Fish landing facilities at Visakhapatnam sought

The Association of Indian Fishery Industries (AIFI), which represents the deepsea fishing industry in the country, has urged the government to provide fish landing facilities at Visakhapatnam for the better exploitation of Tuna fish reserves.

The deepsea fishing industry is slowly moving away from the tiger shrimp catch to Tuna fishing in order to earn good margins and to revive the deepsea fishing industry in the country.

Tuna fish enjoys a good export market, particularly in Japan and the European Union countries. Currently, the Sashimi grade Tuna fish (each fish weighs more than 35 kg) is priced at $8-12 per kg in the international market and the non-Sashimi grade (each fish weighs below 35 kg) comes at $5-7 per kg.

The main problem for export of Sashimi grade Tuna fish, which fetches a high rate in international market is that it should reach Japan within 24 hours of its landing at the Indian coasts.

The AIFI has, therefore, requested the government for good landing facilities at Visakhapatnam and also a daily air cargo facility.

"If the government provides fish landing facilities like chilled storage plants, processing plants, package facility and air-lifting facility, the foreign exchange earnings of the country will be around Rs 400 crore every year, S K Aggarwal, president of AIFI, told Business Standard.

"Otherwise for the time being, we have to depend on Chennai, which has fish landing facilities and air cargo facility, for processing and export of Tuna fish," he added.

Visakhapatnam is the headquarter for the deepsea fishing industry in the country. However, for the last 10 years, due to over exploitation, the tiger shrimp reserves exhausted fast, particularly in the east coast.

The deepsea fishing industry incurred heavy losses due to this and its fishing fleet came down to 65-70 trawlers from the earlier 180 trawlers in the country.

Now, with the support of Marine Products Export Development Authority (Mpeda), the AIFI members are converting some of their trawlers for Tuna fishing.

"Already, six trawlers have been converted for Tuna fishing and another four will be converted soon. Each trawler needs about Rs 35 lakh investment for conversion. Mpeda is providing a subsidy of up to Rs 15 lakh on each trawler," Aggarwal said.

A few trawler operators have shown interest in converting their deepsea fishing vessels for Tuna fishing.

Once 35-40 vessels are engaged in Tuna fishing, we will get around 40 tonnes of Tuna fish everyday, Aggarwal said.

The ongoing Vizag airport expansion will be completed in a couple of years and if the government provides fish landing facilities at Vizag, exporters or importers will fly into Vizag to air-lift the Tuna, he said.