New Delhi: The rapid increase in fisheries and aquaculture is leading to rise in the income of fish farmers. And in the coming days, union government is expecting that it will benefit lot many of them on large scale. The government has been focusing on increasing activities in the vertical to help farmers to earn alternative livelihood besides carrying out their routine practices. In that context, the budget for 2016-17 for this department has been kept at Rs 1700 crore, which is 21 percent higher than the last year budget.
While speaking on the occasion of World Fisheries Day event organized by Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, the Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister, Mr Radha Mohan Singh said that it is the matter of pride that this year more than 72 percent of the budget has been released for the development of the states, which has never happened in the past. Mr Singh said that now, it is the responsibility of the states to spend it properly and should not do fund parking.
With 14.8 % average annual growth rate, India stood first in the world in the export of fisheries products.
The Union Minister said that fish farming will have three benefits firstly, increase in the farmers income secondly, there will be progress in the country’s export and GDP and thirdly it will ensure nutritional and food security in the country.
Agriculture minister mentioned that from last six months, concerned department is formulating many new schemes by its strenuous efforts. The department has launched “Rashtriya Gokul Mission” for the breed improvement of indigenous cows and for cattle, goats and sheep higher breed development; it has launched “National Livestock Mission”. Mr Singh explained that for the year 2014-15, production of milk was Rs. 4.92 lakh crore which was more than 37% from paddy and wheat combined. Accordingly to the estimate for the year 2015-16, there was about Rs 1 lakh crore value fisheries production within the country.
The Union Minister said that in fish production, India is constantly at the second position after China. Fisheries are a big sector in the country and around 150 lakh people are engaged in fisheries business. India has first place in the world in the area of shrimp fish and it is the largest exporter of shrimp fish. Mr said that taking all fisheries production together, there was estimated 10.8 million tones fish production in the country in year 2015-16, which is around 6.4 per cent of total fish production of the world. India is the second largest country in the world to produce fish from aquaculture (42.10 lakh tones). It contributes about 6.3 percent in global aquaculture. From the last decade, where the average annual growth rate of export of fish and fisheries production in the world remaining 7.5 per cent, Indian remain at the first place with an average annual growth rate of 14.8 per
