Cabinet approves extension of Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) (GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- The Union Cabinet has approved extension of Fisheries Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) for another 3 years upto 2025-26 within the already approved fund size of Rs 7522.48 crore and budgetary support of Rs 939.48 crore.
About FIDF:
- In order to address the infrastructure requirement for fisheries sector, the union Government during 2018-19 created the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) with a total funds size of Rs 7522.48 crore.
- In the earlier phase of implementation of FIDF during the period from 2018-19 to 2022-23, a total 121 fisheries infrastructure projects with an investment cost of Rs. 5588.63 crore have been approved for creation of various fisheries infrastructures.
- Extension of FIDF will further intensifies development of various fisheries infrastructures like fishing harbours, fish landing centers, ice plants, cold storage, fish transport facilities, integrated cold chain, modern fish markets, Brood Banks, Hatcheries, aquaculture development, Fish Seed Farms, state of art of fisheries training centres, fish processing units, fish feed mills/plants, cage culture in reservoir, Introduction Deep Sea Fishing Vessels, disease Diagnostic Laboratories, Mariculture and Aquatic Quarantine Facilities.
Finance:
- FIDF will continue provides concessional finance to the Eligible Entities (EEs), including State Governments/Union Territories for development of identified fisheries infrastructure facilities through Nodal Loaning Entities (NLEs) namely National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), National Cooperatives Development Corporation (NCDC) and All scheduled Banks.
- The Government of India provides interest subvention up to 3% per annum for the repayment period of 12 years inclusive of moratorium of 2 years for providing the concessional finance by the NLEs at the interest rate not lower than 5% per annum.
- The Government of India also provides credit guarantee facility to the projects of entrepreneurs, individual farmers and cooperatives from the existing credit guarantee fund of Infrastructure Development Fund of Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
Eligible entities:
- The eligible entities under FIDF are State Governments / Union Territories, State Owned Corporations, State Government Undertakings, Government Sponsored, Supported Organizations, Fisheries Cooperative Federations, Cooperatives, Collective Groups of fish farmers & fish produces, Panchayat Raj Institutions, Self Help Groups (SHGs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Women & their entrepreneurs, Private Companies and Entrepreneurs.
Way Forward:
- The extension of FIDF will further leverages the financial resources, encourages more investments in development of infrastructure for fisheries and aquaculture both from the public and private sector, thereby promoting economic development and expansion of fisheries and aquaculture sector.
- FIDF not only give impetus for creation of modern infrastructure for fisheries and aquaculture, it will also complement and consolidate the achievements of Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) and Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and making it an important scheme for bringing in more stakeholder, investments, employment opportunities, augmentation of fish production and transformation in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector.
Cabinet approves ‘Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY)’
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- The Union Cabinet approved the "Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY)", a Central Sector Sub-scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada for formalization of the fisheries sector and supporting fisheries micro and small enterprises with an investment of over Rs. 6,000 crores over a period of next four (4) years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27 in all States/Union Territories.
Expenditure involved
- The Sub-scheme will be implemented as a Central Sector Sub-scheme under the Central Sector Component of the PMMSY at an estimated outlay of Rs.6,000 crore consisting of 50% i.e. Rs.3,000 crore public finance including the World Bank and the AFD external financing, and rest 50% i.e.Rs.3,000 crore being the anticipated investment from the beneficiaries/private sector leverage.
- It will be implemented for four years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27 across all the States and UTs.
Intended Beneficiaries:
- Fishers, Fish (Aquaculture) Farmers, Fish workers, Fish Vendors or such other person directly engaged in fisheries value chain.
- Micro and Small enterprises in the form of Proprietary Firms, Partnership Firms and Companies registered in India, Societies, Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs), Cooperatives, Federations, Village Level Organizations like Self Help Groups (SHGs), Fish Farmers Producer Organizations (FFPOs) and Startups engaged in fisheries and aquaculture value chains.
- FFPOs also include Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs).
- Any other beneficiaries that may be included by the Department of Fisheries, Gol as targeted beneficiaries.
Aims and objectives of PM-MKSSY:
- Gradual Formalization of the unorganized fisheries sector through self registration of fishers, fish farmers and supportive workers under a National Fisheries Sector Digital Platform including creation of work based digital identifies of fish workers for improved service delivery.
- Facilitating access to institutional financing fisheries sector micro and small enterprises.
- Providing one-time incentive to beneficiaries for purchasing aquaculture insurance.
- lncentivizing fisheries and aquaculture microenterprises through performance grants for improving fisheries sector value-chain efficiencies including creation and maintenance of jobs.
- Incentivising micro and small enterprises through performance grants for adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems including creation and maintenance of jobs.
Implementation strategy:
The Sub-scheme has the following major components:
- Component 1-A: Formalization of fisheries sector and facilitating access of fisheries microenterprises to Government of India programs for working capital financing:
- Fisheries, being an unorganised sector needs to be gradually formalized by creation of registry of the fish producers and other supporting actors such as fish workers, vendors and processors including micro and small enterprises working in the sector at the national level.
- For this purpose, a National Fisheries Digital Platform (NFDP) will be created and all the stakeholders will be mobilized to register on it. They will be encouraged to do so through providing financial incentives.
- The NFDP will serve multiple functions including disbursement of financial incentives.
- It is also proposed to undertake activities such as training and extension support, improving financial literacy, facilitating project preparation and documentation through financial support, reimbursing the processing fee and such other charges, if any and strengthening of existing fisheries cooperative societies.
- Component 1-B: Facilitating adoption of aquaculture insurance:
- It is proposed to facilitate creation of appropriate insurance product and to cover at least 1 lakh hectare of aquaculture farms during project period to provide the scale of operation.
- Further, it is proposed to provide onetime incentive to the willing farmers against purchase of insurance with farm size of 4 hectares of water spread area and less.
- The 'onetime incentive' will be at the rate of 40% of the cost of premium subject to a limit of Rs.25000 per hectare of water spread area of the aquaculture farm. The maximum incentive payable to single farmer will be Rs.1,00,000 and maximum farm size eligible for incentive is 4 hectares of water spread area.
- For more intensive form of aquaculture other than farms such as cage culture, Re-circulatory Aquaculture System (RAS), bio-floc, raceways, etc. the incentive payable is 40% of premium. Maximum incentive payable is 1 lakh and the maximum unit size eligible will be of 1800 m3.
- The aforesaid benefit of 'onetime incentive' will be provided for aquaculture insurance purchased for one crop only i.e. one crop cycle. SC, ST and Women beneficiaries would be provided an additional incentive @ 10% of the incentive payable for General Categories.
Component 2: Supporting microenterprises to improve fisheries sector value chain efficiencies:
- This component seeks to improve value chain efficiencies in fishery sector through a system of performance grants with associated analytics and awareness campaigns.
- It is proposed to incentivise microenterprises to reengage in production, creation and maintenance of jobs with priority for women and to enhance value chain efficiencies through provisions of performance grants within selected value chains under a set of measurable parameters.
d) Component 3: Adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems:
It is proposed to incentivize fisheries micro and small enterprises to adopt safety and quality assurance systems in marketing of fish and fishery products through provision of performance grants against a set of measurable parameters. This is expected to expand the market for fish and to create and maintain jobs especially for women. This intervention is expected to expand domestic market for fish through increased supply of safe fish and fishery products which will attract new consumers.
e) Performance Grant disbursement criteria for components 2 and 3
- Number of jobs created and maintained; including jobs created and maintained for women. For each job created and maintained for a woman an amount of Rs.15,000 per year will be paid, similarly, for each job created and maintained for a man an amount of Rs.10,000 per year will be paid, subject to the limit of 50% of total eligible grant.
- Investments made in the value chain for increasing the value chain efficiency for component 2 and investment made for adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems under component 3, performance grant for investments made will be disbursed after completion of the investment subject to the limit of 50% of the eligible grant.
f) Component 4: Project management, monitoring and reporting:
Under this component, it is proposed to set up Project Management Units (PMUs) to manage, implement, monitor and evaluate project activities.
Way Forward:
- Despite significant achievements, there are a number of sectoral challenges felt in the sector. The sector is informal in nature, lack of crop risk mitigation, lack of work based identities, poor access to institutional credit, sub-optimal safety & quality of fish sold by micro & small enterprises.
- The new-sub-scheme under the existing Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) aims to address these issues, with total outlay of Rs.6,000 crore.
