India’s blue economy is understood as a subset of the national economy comprising an entire ocean resources system and human-made economic infrastructure in marine, maritime, and onshore coastal zones within the country’s legal jurisdiction. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) being the nodal Ministry, has rolled out the draft National Policy for India’s Blue Economy-2021.
The policy document aims to enhance the contribution of the blue economy to India’s GDP, improve the lives of coastal communities, preserve marine biodiversity, and maintain the national security of marine areas and resources. The draft policy framework emphasizes policies across several key sectors including Fisheries to achieve holistic growth of India’s economy.
The Government of India in recent years has taken several initiatives to harness the full potential of the fisheries sector sustainably and responsibly. The Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) – ‘Blue Revolution: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries’ was launched in 2015-16 with an outlay of Rs 3000 crores for 5 years. To address the critical gaps in the fisheries infrastructure, ‘Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund’ (FIDF) was created in 2018-19 with a fund size of Rs. 7522.48 crores for providing concessional finance to the State/UT Governments, their entities, and the private sector.
Recognizing the immense potential in the fisheries sector, the Government of India in May 2020 with the highest investment of Rs. 20,050 crore, launched a new flagship scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana’ (PMMSY) to bring about Blue Revolution through sustainable and responsible development of the fisheries sector in the country. PMMSY is being implemented for a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 in all States and UTs.
As a result of these initiatives, during recent years the Fisheries sector in India has shown impressive growth with an average annual growth rate of about 10 % (during 2014-15 to 2018-19), the fish production has registered an average annual growth of more than 7% and stood at an all-time high of 141.64 lakh metric tons during 2019-20. Despite various issues faced by the sector during Covid – 19 pandemic, India has achieved all time high exports of marine products worth US$ 7165 million during April to February, 2021-22.
This information was disclosed by The Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Parshottam Rupala in the Rajya Sabha in a written reply today.