NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the setting up of a National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) with an estimated budget of Rs. 2,100 crore over the next six years. The Board will focus attention on fisheries and aquaculture.

It will also promote professional management to improve production and to achieve sustainable management by carrying out intensive aquaculture, reservoir fisheries, brackish-water aquaculture, mariculture, seaweed cultivation, development of infrastructure and streamlining domestic marketing.

Governing body

The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also approved creating the requisite number of posts and the appointment of a governing body and an executive committee on the Board.

The Cabinet decision will help increase annual fish production by 3.9 million tonnes at the end of six years. It will generate an expected income of Rs. 95 crore a year, official sources said.

The activities of the Board would ensure development of infrastructure as well as effective management and optimum utilisation of fishery resources to make it self-sufficient, the sources said.

Synergy with fisheries bodies

The Board, to be set up under the Societies Registration Act, 1960, will create a synergy with all the fisheries institutes functioning under the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries.

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