Vijayawada: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy would deposit a financial assistance of Rs 231 crore to fishermen at a programme in Nizampatnam, Bapatla district, at 11am on Tuesday.
This is for the fifth consecutive year that CM Jagan would be depositing Rs 123.52 crore as financial assistance to benefit 1,23,519 fishermen families across the state. Each family would get a financial assistance of Rs 10,000. This is compensation to them in view of the ban on marine fishing from April 15 to June 14.
The amount would be directly remitted into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries at the click of a button by the CM.
The chief minister would also deposit Rs 108 crore to benefit 23,458 fishermen families hailing from Konaseema and Kakinada districts as a compensation as they have lost their source of livelihood due to the pipeline works taken up by the ONGC.
The YSR Congress government has been implementing the ‘YSR Matsyakara Bharosa’ scheme for the benefit of fishermen families by providing them a financial assistance of Rs 10,000 per head each time. So far, the fishermen families received Rs 50,000 per head including the Rs 10,000 being deposited for each beneficiary family on Tuesday.
Government sources said their government is also taking up several measures to better the living standards of fishermen and to avoid them getting migrated to other places in search of work. “Accordingly, the government is setting up 10 fishing harbours and six fish landing centres with world class facilities at a cost of Rs 3,767.48 crore,” they said.
“The government is also taking up the construction of four ports in the last four years at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore to generate employment and to promote export of marine products at low transportation cost.”
The sources added, “Moreover, the state government is setting up a fisheries university in West Godavari to impart knowledge and train youths for better fishing activity and is taking up recruitment of fisheries assistants at RBKs. The aqua farmers are getting power at lower costs, with a subsidy of Rs 1.50 per unit.”
They said, “During the previous Telugu Desam term, fishermen used to be given just Rs 2,000 as relief during the period of the ban on fishing, in the first two years. It was then enhanced to Rs 4,000. Only 60,000 families were offered the relief and the TD government spent only Rs 21 crore per annum on an average for this purpose.”
The TD government provided a diesel subsidy of only six rupees per litre to 1,100 boats with an average annual expenditure of Rs 12 crore,” the sources said.
