Govt to dangle policy bait to boost fishing industry

Hyderabad: With an aim to give an impetus to the fishing industry, the State government will be coming up with a robust policy, after examining the best practices of other States.

The State Fisheries has increased focus on improving production by utilising the waters in over 100 reservoirs across Telangana and gradually doing away with existing contract mechanism. A team comprising Telangana Fishermen Co-operative Societies Federation (TFCSF) chairman Mettu Sai Kumar and higher officials will be visiting different states to study the success story, starting from Karnataka.

The team will later visit the landlocked States of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, as both the States, despite being completely depending on freshwater fish, have utilised the potential while keeping afloat the industry. “We have 14,000 lakes and 102 reservoirs which remain underutilised to this day, since there is no proper policy. We hope to take this to optimum level and transform the industry into a boon on par with neighbouring States. For instance, Chhattisgarh, which is facing a lot of challenges, has a robust fishing industry. It is unfortunate that Telangana lacks proper reforms and a policy on this. Once the study is completed, a report will be submitted to the government, which will decide further plan of action including a decision on policy,” explained the Chairman to The Hans India.

According to Mettu Sai Kumar, just over 10 per cent of reservoirs are utilised for fishing owing to different reasons which will be resolved soon. “Once we make use of all the 102 reservoirs for pisciculture, even Telangana’s industry could transform itself into a profit-making one, thereby contributing to the State government’s exchequer. But first we need to do away with the contract mechanism and bring this revenue generating department completely under the control of the State government,” he added.

The team as part of the study tour will be first embarking on a three-day tour to Karnataka, where they will be visiting Mysore and other locations. After completing the study within the country there is also a proposal to visit the US to examine the best practices there.