Kerala - Kochi   

Major development in fisheries soon: Sarma

KOCHI: Fisheries Minister S. Sarma has said the fisheries master plan, which is being drafted, will bring in about Rs.3,000 crore of development money in Kerala’s coastal sector over the next few years. The required money will come from varied sources. The master plan will lead to all-round development of the fishing community, which is one of the most marginalised sections of society.

Mr. Sarma was speaking at a two-day workshop on the master plan here on Friday. As part of the master plan preparation, six task forces had been set up to study different components such as marine fisheries, inland fisheries, fish processing and marketing, infrastructure, welfare and research. The workshop would discuss the reports of the task forces and combine the recommendations into a master plan.

Mr. Sarma said the government had asked the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad, to draw up the project report. While implementing the project, overlapping with other ongoing project such as the tsunami rehabilitation would be avoided. The master plan would try to bring the benefits of modern technology to the fisheries sector.

Planning Board Vice-Chairman Prabhat Patnaik said the per capita output in the fisheries sector had not improved, though the terms of trade had turned against the fish workers and input cost had gone up. The annual per capita output of the workers in 2006 was Rs.93,000. This meant that the average daily wage was just Rs.200.

Dr. Patnaik said fish workers were among the most marginalised sections of society and that the future was not promising. The international price of oil, which was 120 dollars a barrel, was a big threat to the fishworkers’ income.

He said fish workers should be insulated against food price hike by providing them subsidised food grains through the public distribution system. There should also be healthcare insurance for them.

He said the inland fisheries output could be more than doubled, though the sustainable level of output of marine fisheries did not offer much scope. He also suggested that the fisheries sector focus on value addition.

K. Kutty Ahamed Kutty and T.N. Prathapan, MLAs, former MLA P. Raju and Fisheries Director Sheik Pareed were among those spoke.

The workshop will end on Saturday.

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