This was said by the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu at the Aqua Aquaria India 2015, international conference on aquaculture in Vijayawada on February 20, 2015.
However, due to model code of conduct in force in view of the forthcoming election to the Teachers’ constituency member of the Legislative Council, the chief minister did not officially announce the policy.
“Due to model code of conduct we could not make an announcement, but the government will consider all the issues expressed by aqua industry including farmers, hatcheries and processors in formalising the policy document,” Naidu stressed.
The new policy will cover issues concerning the aqua sector that includes permissions for raising aqua farms, export related issues, human resource and skill development among 1.4 million people who are dependent on the industry.
Under this policy, state government will also set up university for fisheries and aqua industry along with colleges offering graduation courses and polytechnics.
Naidu said the there is tremendous scope for leveraging the advantages offered by the 974 km coastline for boosting aqua industry. The new policy would address all the concerns raised by representatives of the industry and the government would announce a slew of incentives for those venturing to invest in aqua trade.
Emphasizing the need to provide skills at the university levels, Naidu said, government had decided to ensure skill up gradation and implementation of best practices in making the sector remunerative as well as best foreign exchange earner in the coming days.
The proposed university would accordingly focus on exchange of best technologies available across the globe to ensure quantum jump in productivity and quality.
The three day event was organised by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) at the Loyala College Ground, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh state from February 20-22, 2015.
