With Chief Secretary AP Padhi, Development Commissioner R Balakrishna and Fisheries Secretary Bishnupada Sethi focusing on the development of fisheries, the sector is bound to achieve its targets.
Odisha has a potential of 4.5 lakh tons of fish harvest of which achieving an export target of Rs20,000 crore is pragmatic. Different schemes to increase fish production in the State are already in place. Besides gradually resolving the unemployment problems, the sector is largely contributing to the foreign exchange earning without significant imports.
Be it agriculture or fisheries, standalone schemes in neither of these sectors can be profitable unless the MSMEs are roped in to process their produce either from the farms or from the sea.
let fish and fish products be the main produce of Odisha/India as geographically we are most suited State/country to culture, harvest, process and export both inland and marine products. Being one of the cheapest and best sources of protein, it can also be consumed domestically by our masses mostly the middle and poor class.
With vast area of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), India needs to be equipped with not only fleets of deep sea trawlers, but it must also have factory ships processing marine products fresh on board in order to exploit at least a part of the marine fisheries that the nature has gifted to this country.
Whereas India today has hardly about 60 deep sea trawlers deployed in our EEZ. Interestingly, out of such 60 numbers, about 40 of them are engaged in non-fishing activities like supply boats to oil rigs, survey ships etc. The remaining 20 are mostly laid up for repairs or unable to continue fishing due to mainly working capital constraints. Hence practically India has no deep sea trawlers. Indian EEZ has large stock of yellow fin tuna and big eye tuna. In and around Andaman Sea, such tuna could be of around 130 kg in weight with an average price of around 20 dollars a kg. Fresh tuna, if we develop our infrastructure, India could have easily achieved the export target of 6 billion dollars by 2015. The present scenario is such that Indian waters are continuously being poached by foreign trawlers belonging mainly to Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia and even Philippine trawlers. On the contrary, the coastal areas are over fished. What we need to focus today is to plan out the introduction of deep sea trawlers and factory ships in the Indian EEZ.
Odisha, which has about 480 km coastline and hundreds of landing bases, needs to strengthen the fishing fleet with deep sea trawlers as well. Till date, the State had one registered deep sea trawler, SAI Sadhoba, acquired with finance from OSFC. Eventually this was sold out after seven years of successful operations due to non-availability of working capital to run the trawler.
It has also been a matter of great concern that a large part of our coastline in Odisha ,which are probably the best suited fishing grounds ,are banned for fishing during the breeding season of Olive Ridley turtles. Areas like Gahiramatha, Rashikuly, Devi and Jatahari sea mouths are probably the best grounds which are under the banned areas. The fishermen in such areas also suffer due to lack of rehabilitation as complained by Odisha Traditional Marine Fish Workers Union (OTFWU). The Government of Odisha has now proposed financial assistance to these fishermen during fishing ban period with budget provision of Rs16 crore.
Conservation of turtle is important but the fishermen of those areas notified as banned areas need to be rehabilitated sufficiently. The Government of Odisha has launched various schemes for development of fisheries, mainly the inland fisheries. There have even announced 50 per cent subsidy for aqua culture growth under various schemes. The Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA), at Bhubaneswar, is also actively involved in training fishermen and entrepreneurs for the development of fisheries but in spite of all such facilities, why the State is still lagging behind for production of fish to the extent that we look up to States like Andhra Pradesh, for providing us our daily requirement of fishesIJ
On interaction with various fisheries association in the States, it was revealed that most fishermen, though happy with the schemes that the Government of Odisha, are unhappy with their poor implementation. Besides, the major complaints lie in the availability of need based funding such as term loans to acquire assets and the working capital fund to a fisherman in Odisha to meet the running expenses of his boat. They need funds to buy nets, diesels, provisions, spares and also to meet salary of the crew on board. With the schemes launched by the Government, if the working capital funds are tied up through a cooperative bank or any other scheduled bank, the schemes launched can finally see the light of the day. Presently, the woe of the fisherman, borrowing funds from a private money lender and finally landing in a debt trap situation can be avoided.
Many fishermen are forced to work in other States as bonded labourers after losing their boats and livelihood at home. Several fishermen in the past have committed suicide under such debt trap situation. The poverty and the woe of the fishermen in Odisha can be largely reversed by ensuring need based working capital fund to the fishing community. It is a matter of regret that out of Rs776.14 crore allotted by the Centre to the State Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department under the last five year plan, Rs 106.47 crores was refunded to due to non-utilization. With the working capital tie up, the position is bound to improve and the fisheries in the State will flourish, adding substantial revenue to the income. Besides banks, there are also various other funding agencies and financial institutions, such as National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), who have dedicated funds for deployment in the fishing sector. The process of availing such fund is so complicated that a poor fisherman is never in a position to derive any loan or grant from the NFDB. See the box.
(The writer is working chairperson, Entrepreneurs’ and Finance Customers’ Association of India-EFCAI, Email: - efcai12@gmail.com)