Call to set up 4,000 Fish Andhra Hubs in AP

VIJAYAWADA: An empowered committee on aquaculture has directed the officials to set up 4,000 Fish Andhra Hubs across the state by the end of March.

The committee comprising ministers Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, Botsa Satyanarayana and Seediri Appalaraju and others held a meeting here on Monday to review the implementation of its previous decisions.

The ministers said Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was according top priority to strengthening the aqua sector. The panel would try and resolve a series of problems being faced by the aqua farmers. The decisions of the committee for fixing the seed and feed rates based on a scientific approach and for stabilisation of prices were yielding good results, they said.

Aquaculture was taken up in about 2.12 lakh hectares in the state and nearly 1.38 lakh farmers were involved in this. As many as 111 cold storages were storing 2.27 metric tonnes of aqua products in the state.

The meeting advised officials to set up 4,000 Fish Andhra Hubs across the state and said the Centre had agreed to provide a loan to set them up under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana.

Maintaining that AP aqua farmers were competing with those in Ecuador and Brazil for aqua exports, the ministers felt the need to improve domestic consumption and called for better marketing efforts.

They directed the fisheries authorities to hold talks with the seed manufacturers and processing units to ensure there was no hike in prices of aqua seed and feed.

The state government is providing power on subsidy basis to the aqua farmers taking up aqua culture in places falling under aqua zones and having an area of cultivation of less than 10 acres. At present, about 26,000 power connections were getting subsidised power, it was noted at the meeting.