Fishermen disappointed with dept, wanted separate ministry

Mangalore | Saturday | 2nd February, 2019

Summary:

To provide sustained and focused attention towards development of this sector, our government has decided to create a separate department of fisheries. The committee has been pushing for a separate ministry to address problems of fishermen.Manohar Boloor, president of the committee, said that there are nine fishing states on the east and west coast of the country plus four Union territories where fishing is carried out extensively. Mangaluru: The initial euphoria of fishermen was short-lived as soon as they learnt that interim finance minister Piyush Goyal had announced a separate department for fisheries , and not a ministry.The Coastal Karnataka Fishermen’s Action Committee expressed its anguish over the proposal clearly unhappy with the decision. This is not fair, he felt.Committee general secretary Vasudev Boloor said that the fisheries department, currently under the ministry of agriculture, has not done justice to the aspirations of fishermen.Manohar said: Though we are under the ministry of agriculture, facilities farmers get we do not. Earlier we had sales tax exemption..