Puduchery govt. to promote deep-sea fishing near Andaman coast: Lt. Governor

The customary address by Lieutenant Governor K. Kailashnathan on the opening day of the Budget session of the Puducherry Assembly, besides giving an outlook on the state of economy, also provided a glimpse of the government’s thinking on various subjects, including issues faced by the Union Territory’s fishing community.

The customary address by Lieutenant Governor K. Kailashnathan on the opening day of the Budget session of the Puducherry Assembly, besides giving an outlook of the state of economy, also provided a glimpse of the government’s thinking on various subjects, including issues faced by the Union Territory’s fishing community.

An indirect reference was made to the recent arrest and seizure of fishing equipment of fishermen from Karaikal by the Sri Lankan Navy; the Lt. Governor stated that the government wanted to bring a permanent solution to the crossing of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) by the fishermen.

“The government is aware of the issues of crossing [IMBL] and wants to permanently provide a solution through a deep-sea fishing policy. A joint working group is now formulating a policy for deep-sea fishing with an aim to encourage the fishermen to venture towards Andaman Sea and to bring large fish catches in environmentally sustainable manner by identifying the potential fish landing zones using the satellite and recent technology. The fish catches would be value-added through processing, to promote the possible ways of exports,” the Lt Governor said.

The Department of Fisheries and Fishermen Welfare had conducted a meeting with all the Central fishery institutions such as Fisheries Survey of India, Mumbai, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, and Marine Products Exports Development Authority to formulate a policy for deep-sea fishing.

The government has selected two deep-sea fishing vessels for fisherwomen at Puducherry and four more vessels at Karaikal at a unit cost of ₹1.2 crore, with 60% subsidy for women under the PMMSY scheme, besides facilitating bank loans for the remaining 40%, he said.

“The efforts will alleviate the suffering of fishermen arising due to crossing the IMBL and will give a relief to a long-standing problem faced by fishermen community,” Mr Kailashnathan said.

He outlined several initiatives of the government in augmenting drinking water supply and improvement of infrastructure. An Integrated Urban Livability Project for the UT has been submitted to the Centre for ₹4,750 crore with the objective to enhance water availability by constructing two desalination plants, each having a capacity of 50 MLD, augmentation of surface water sources and improving existing water supply system, sewerage and road connectivity by availing loan from Asian Development Bank.