West Bengal invites private investment into fisheries

The West Bengal government is inviting private investment to develop fisheries in the state, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The state has identified bigger water bodies for the purpose, the state fisheries department official said. The investment could be in the form of a joint venture or be solely private, Sumanta Chaudhuri, the Additional Chief Secretary of the Fisheries Department, said on the sidelines of an event here. 

Chaudhuri said that the state government had last year adopted a policy to encourage private investment in the fisheries sector.

“The policy will encourage those willing to invest in the fisheries sector. There will be separate incentive for them... capital subsidy, subsidy on the VAT, electricity duty,” Chaudhuri said.

The official said that his department faced the same problem of inadequate cold storage and processing as like the agriculture and horticulture departments. “So far there has been consumption-oriented production in West Bengal, but now we need to think in terms of the consumption, export, value-addition as well as the retail chain and that is very important,” the official said.