Gangtok: On Friday 20^th AuguGst 2021 the Fish Farmer Producers Organization (FFPO) PMMSY e-portal on fisheries of Sikkim and fish farming training manuals was launched along with the inauguration of a conference hall at the office of the Directorate of Fisheries near Paljor Stadium by the Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services minister Lok Nath Sharma.

Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services Secretary Dr. Sangey D. Bhutia, Directorate of Fisheries director Jaswant Singh and officials along with the Chief Executive, National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB)-Hyderabad, Government of India, Dr. Suvarna C. from Chennai, and NABARD GM Diwakar Hegde from Regu, East Sikkim were present during the virtual launch programme.

While addressing the virtual programme, the minister marked the launching programme as a historic milestone towards the strengthening of the fisheries sector in Sikkim, and the State government has been working tirelessly to bring notable progress in fisheries in the State. Also, Lok Nath Sharma thanked the NFDB-Hyderabad for its consistent financial support.

PMMSY e-portal, dedicated to the State of Sikkim aims to expedite the process digitally for immediate solutions and certainly save time for the farmers. The PMMSY e-portal has been designed to facilitate online applications for applying on different fish farming schemes of the government, which will help in reducing the time and paperwork for both fish farmers and officials. The fish farmers can directly log in from their mobile through the portal (pmmsy.sikkim.gov.in) and can apply from home only.

The vision and planning of making the State self-sufficient in terms of production of indigenous varieties, particularly relating to the high demand of trout and carp fish and its supply outside, once the futuristic goals are achieved through proactive participation.

Chief Executive, NFDB, Dr. Suvarna C.  further acknowledged the formation of FFPOs in the State and praised the support of Sikkim for the implementation of PMMSY by launching an e-portal

During the launching programme, Dr. Suvarna also drew light on the advantages of climatic conditions in the Himalayan State for fish farming and assured to provide continuous support for the development in the fishery sector.

General Manager, NABARD, Diwakar Hegde too virtually addressed the participants and expressed happiness on the formation of FFPOs with the support of NABARD and also defined organizations as the key social capital of tremendous importance.

The objective for developing the e-portal is to encourage fish farmers and unemployed youth to take up entrepreneurship activity in the field of fisheries. The e-portal provides services of online application, scrutiny, validation of documents, issuing of work orders, and subsidies through Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT). The PMMSY e-portal has been developed under Sikkim–Single Sign On (Sikkim-SOS) of the Department of Information Technology.

PMMSY provides for the creation of Fish Farmers Producer Organizations /Companies (FFPOs/Cs) under the central sector component that would help to economically empower the fishers and fish farmers and enhance their bargaining power. The main objective of FFPOs is to build capacities of fishers and fish farmers to develop entrepreneurial skills for making the FFPOs economically viable and self-sustaining and develop a vibrant and sustainable income-oriented fisheries value chain.

It may be further mentioned that through the support of NABARD, two units of FFPOs at Regu in East Sikkim and Sribadam in West Sikkim will be developed by the Directorate of Fisheries with technical support from SIMFED, Gangtok.

Training manual on fish farming of carp and trout were also launched by the minister, which will be helping the farmers in successful culture of fish thereby augmenting the fish production in the State.

N. Jaswant informed that a total of 363 fishermen from Sikkim have been registered under NFDB-PMMSY- Group Accidental Insurance Scheme (GAIS) where the beneficiaries will be benefitted from Rs. 25,000 against accidental hospitalization, Rs. 2,50,000 against permanent partial disability, and Rs. 5 lakhs against death or permanent total disability.