Fishing body plans co-operative, to take up Tuna fishing operations

The Association of Indian Fishery Industry (AIFI), a national body for the trawler fishing industry, is planning to form a co-operative body to take up the long-lining Tuna fishing operations in a group.

Addressing a press conference, S K Aggarwal, president of AIFI, said: "Shrimp catches are dwindling significantly in Indian waters year by year and the shrimp exporting prices are also falling drastically. Since depending only on shrimp catches is not viable for the trawler industry any more in the country, we are planning to take up the Tuna fishing, which is having good export potential, in a group. For this, the association is going to form a co-operative body in a couple of months."

"Since the industry cannot yield good results with one or two vessels, we are taking up an initiative to form a group with 15 to 20 trawlers and start long-lining operations of Tuna fishing. The profits will be shared among the members of the group," he added.

Aggarwal said that an entrepreneur from Sri Lanka has come forward to set up a 2,000-tonne per month capacity Tuna fish processing plant at Chennai.

"The Union government has also agreed to give a subsidy of Rs 15 lakh on each trawler to convert the shrimp catching trawlers into Tuna fishing trawlers. If we can start the Tuna fishing in a group, each trawler can catch around one tonne of Tuna fish a day, which will fetch a price of $5 per kg of Tuna in the international market," he said.

In an effort to get additional price on shrimp exports, the association is also focusing on value-addition by way of head-on packing of shrimp and other by-products.

"If we can able to export head-on shrimp, the industry will earn an extra 50 per cent revenue on exports. Hence, we are taking up steps to upgrade some of our vessels to comply with the European Union-approved factory standards. The Union government is also extending financial assistance to provide on-board packing facility on trawlers," Aggarwal said.

The association is also urging the government to provide large-scale cold storage facilities at Visakhapatnam or Chennai to store the low-value fish varieties, he added.

Accusing some foreign trawlers of operating in Indian waters by way of Letter of Permissions (LoPs) without paying any charges to the Indian government, Aggarwal said that these large and modern foreign trawlers are exploiting the Indian grounds as well.

"With the foreign trawlers operating in Indian waters, the Indian trawler operators are incurring heavy losses. Our association is demanding the Union government to scrap the LoP policy and deny entry for foreign vessels into Indian waters," he said.