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A BNE Exclusive interview with Mr. Joy Prakash Medhi, Joint Director of Fisheries
Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampadana Yojana is one of the most ambitious and flagship projects intended for the development of fisheries under a centrally sponsored scheme. The scheme has adopted several modern methods to enhance fish productivity via extension, species intensification, diversification, and prolific utilization of land & water. The scheme also focuses on improving the quality, harnessing the post-harvest management system.
A total investment of Rs. 20050 crores have been estimated for the successful implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana over the course of five years. Fisheries and aquaculture have been one of the main sources of nutrition and employment in India. The sector contributes around 1.24% GVA to the national economy and around 7.28% to the Agricultural GVA. With the progress of the scheme, the generation of 55 lakh employment opportunities is likely to occur directly or indirectly. The scheme focuses to minimize post-harvest losses to about 10% by 2025. Social, physical, and economical security for fish farmers is being targeted under this scheme.
Under PMMSY, the Directorate of Fisheries has received around Rs110cr total project cost approved by the government of India. Out of which Rs51.14cr is central assistance. They have completed nearly 70-80% of the activities to be performed under this scheme. Thus far, 50% of the budget is being utilized and they are expecting to utilize their entire fund by the end of this financial year. A few of the components they have adopted under this scheme are – fish hatchery, Bioflock, fish marketing vehicles, livelihood support, etc The annual assistance of Rs. 3,000/- will be granted to the beneficiaries enrolled under the activity “Livelihood & nutritional support for socio-economically backward, active traditional fishers” working to conserve the fishes during the fish lean/ban period. The scheme focuses at doubling the export earnings from Rs. 46,589 crores in 2018-19 to Rs.1 lakh crores by 2024-25. This scheme is also providing a tremendous amount of employment in India. They are anticipating that the infrastructure scenario of Assam would improve and expect to have better growth and development of the fisheries sector as far as the objective of PMMSY is realized.
