Fact Sheet: Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF)

To double farmers’ income by 2022 the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved creation of FAIDF recently. The proposal for creation of fund was made in budget 2018-19.

Salient features of the fund

• The main aim is to boost fish production to achieve the target of producing 15 million tonnes of fish production by 2020 and 20 million tonnes by 2022-23 from current production of 11.4 million tonnes. The aim to achieve this target was set under Blue revolution.
• The nodal agencies for the fund will be National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), National Cooperatives Development Corporation (NCDC) and scheduled banks.
• The fund being raised by nodal loaning entities (NLE).
• The estimated fund size is about 7522 crore that will benefit country in both inland and marine fisheries areas.
• The fund will involve in attracting private investment and technologies in creation and management of fisheries all around the country.

Indian Fish Market

Fisheries in India is an important economic activity and emerging sector. India’s fish production is estimated at around 12 million tonnes annually. India has become the second largest fish producing and aquaculture industry in the world. In aquaculture, India is second to china with a share of 6% in global aquaculture. The fisheries sector employed over 14.5 million people directly and many more indirectly. At present, Fish production contributes to around 1% to GDP of country and 5% to agricultural GDP of country. India exports one tenth of its Fish produced. The contribution of fish from the seas has lowered now and the share is rising from inland farming.
The Indian government has taken a lot of other efforts to boost up Indian aquaculture market such as Integrating all the existing schemes under Blue Revolution, Establishing  ‘Brood bank’ for commercially important species to ensure production and supply of certified broods to hatcheries in the country, developing cold water fishery, improving the manpower requirements of the fisheries programs. Overall, fisheries is a sunrise sector having a lot of future growth possibilities. All the 3 sub sectors viz. Inland, Aquaculture and Marine fisheries have a lot of scope for improvement. The recent step of creating FAIDF is a praised step to boost the fisheries sector to the desired level.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2018