more-in The existing approach and procedures of plan spending by the Government of Puducherry needs to be radically restructured in the backdrop of the need for the optimal utilisation of scarce financial and real resource to maximise growth, former MP M. Ramadass said here on Friday. “The ongoing arithmetic exercise of adding or subtracting 10% of previous year’s outlay to determine this year’s outlay has to be abandoned and in its place real requirement based methodology has to be substituted. Plan sectors contributing directly to productivity, production, employment generation, purchasing power and State Domestic Product should be properly identified and prioritised for plan spending after scientifically assessing their requirement of funds,” he said in a statement. According to Mr. Ramadass, keeping these parameters in mind, the government can easily choose a dozen productive sectors which can catalyse the overall growth of Puducherry economy. Fishing was one such sector which had a high untapped potential for growth but grossly neglected in plan financing over the years. “Given the right financial support, fishing can emerge as a money spinner for the economy,” he said. All the four regions of the territory were maritime and they had a coast line of 45 km, with 675 km of inshore water and fresh water area of about 2,000 hectares. The fishermen community engaged in fishing in these resources constitutes the third largest community of the territory (about 9% of the territory’s population), Mr. Ramadass said. The fishery work force forming 8.6% of the labour force of the territory produce fishery output which was 53,808 tonnes in 2015-16 and 55,191 tonnes in 2016-17. Consequently, the contribution of fishery sector to State Domestic Product (SDP) was ?247 crore in 2014-15; ?294 crore in 2015-16; ?298 crore in 2016-17 and ?313 crore in 2017-18. Fisheries alone produced 17.2% of the output of the primary sector including agriculture and animal husbandry in the last four years. Besides, fishery sector supplements the food availability and ensures food security to the people, stimulates export growth and development of ancillary industries such as net making, boat building and so on. Such a significant sector should have been considered as a priority and realising its present and future prospects, the Government of Puducherry should have earmarked sufficient plan outlay for its development. However, unfortunately, this predominant productive sector had been receiving a raw deal from the government in the last 30 years, Mr. Ramadass said. Without any just and scientific basis, the government had been allocating meagre funds to fisheries disproportionate to its requirements. The annual plan expenditure of the Department of Fisheries was just ?46 crore in 2014-15; ?43 crore in 2015-16; ?45 crore in 2016-17 and ?47 crore in 2017-18. Inadequate support During the period under review (2014-17), the government spent only ?181 crore on fisheries while the aggregate plan expenditure of the government was ?7,777 crore which implied that the Fisheries Department had just received only a paltry 2.3% of the expenditure. In the last four years, the fishery sector had contributed ?1,152 crore to the State Domestic Product but the government had given back only a fraction to this sector. “Can a government unleash this exploitation, injustice and neglect on the third largest community of the territory? When the annual plan expenditure of ?45 crore is insufficient to provide even the normal relief to fishermen what funds would be available to implement productive schemes to enhance output?”, he wondered. The government had been unable to provide sufficient mechanised and other boats and create infrastructure such as fish landing jetties, fish curing yards, ice plant cum cold storage units, fish farms or vans for fish transport. Deep sea fishing, which is emphasised by the Government of India in recent times, had not been given any recognition so far by the Government of Puducherry. In the absence of these facilities, the full potential of the sea had not been tapped. It is quite possible to enhance the present fish output of 55,199 tonnes to 1 lakh tonnes in the future provided sufficient funding was made by the government. According to the former MP, two options could be considered by the government to enhance the plan expenditure of the Department of Fisheries. On the lines of Special Component Plan for the Scheduled Castes people, the government should introduce a new scheme titled State Special Component Plan (SSCP) for Fishermen and decide outlay for the fisheries sector in proportion to the population (9%). When the Plan outlay is ?2,750 crore, 9% of it , or ?248 crore, should be the outlay for the Department of Fisheries. The second option is that the government allocates 60% of what the Fisheries Sector contributes to the State Domestic Product, that is ?188 crore out of ?313 crore. At any rate, the annual plan expenditure should be stepped up from the present ?47 crore and it should range from ?188 crore to ?248 crore. “The increased expenditure alone would ensure economic and social justice to the predominant productive community which is now considered for the status of Scheduled Tribe by the Government of India besides hastening the process of ‘blue revolution’ in the Union Territory of Puducherry as a component of Prosperous Puducherry,” Mr. Ramadass said.

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