Date:05/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/05/stories/2008090559700500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Bottom-up approach to fisheries leasing policy

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: A two-day national expert consultative conference to discuss a comprehensive fisheries leasing policy for Tamil Nadu began here on Thursday.

It will help to formulate a policy that will include the views of all stakeholders, say officials.

Inaugurating the conference, Commissioner of Fisheries Shambhu Kallolikar said the conference was long overdue. The draft would be implemented as soon as the inputs from various stakeholders were obtained and after getting the government’s approval.

R. Jayaraman, head, Department of Fisheries Resources and Economics, Fisheries College and Research Institute, Tuticorin, said that unlike many others, the comprehensive policy would take a bottom-up approach, involving the fishermen in the discussion to protect their interests.

Leena Nair, Secretary, Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, said the discussion would help to tone up the draft and would also involve the Revenue Department as it was the custodian of most onshore resources.

Revenue Secretary Ambhuj Sharma said the policy was important at the current time, and his department would look at the policy in great detail, while reforming land-leasing policy in near future. He suggested that the best leasing policy have returns as the basis for lease rate, with 5-10 per cent of the returns collected as lease.

Fall in production

G. Mohan Kumar, chairman, Marine Products Export Development Authority, Kochi, who was the chief guest, said the policy was timely because India was experiencing a fall in fish production. The existing resources were being depleted, and there were not sufficient diversity and technical inputs to facilitate sufficient exports.

Culture fisheries

He called for a shift from “capture fisheries”—wherein the focus was on improving the catch—to “culture fisheries,” in which fisherfolk were trained in cultivating fish species.

The Tamil Nadu government was pro-active in promoting “cage farming,” he said, and a comprehensive policy would promote this approach optimally.

The draft would be discussed over technical sessions and sent for approval to other agencies, including the maritime board and the naval authorities. The implementation would take a few months, an official said.