D N Thakur, the Deputy Managing Director of the co-operative funding body NCDC has said that the govt dream of achieving blue revolution is possible only through cooperatives. He was speaking in a seminar on the issue in Delhi on Wednesday.
All economic revolutions- be it White Revolution or Green Revolution were made possible by the intervention of the robust cooperative movement of the country.” I have no doubt that even this Blue Revolution of increasing fish-production would need support of existing co-op structures to succeed,” Thakur underlined.
His words were music to cooperators’ ears who were holding the 38th AGM of apex cooperative body of fishermen Fishcopfed under the threat of the govt apathy. On the occasion of its AGM Fishcopfed had organized a seminar on the pet project of the NDA govt “Blue Revolution”.
In a break from tradition, it invited top cooperative officials rather than cooperators to deliberate on the issue. Those present included Deputy MD of NCDC D N Thakur, CE of NCUI N Satyanarayan , Labour Cooperative MD Pratibha Ahuja and MD B K Mishra himself and Chairman T Rao Dora.
Earlier, B K Mishra, MD Fishcopfed made a presentation detailing the status of fish-production in the country compared to the world. His exhaustive presentation was enough to convince the participants of the need to involve fisheries co-operatives in the project Blue Revolution.
Mishra said we have 2 mobile fish vans as of now but we intend increasing it to 20. “We have four fish shops so far but we intend to increase the number to 50”, said the MD.
He urged the fisheries cooperative societies delegates to sell fish medicine product CIFAX to make the beleaguered
cooperative profitable. State governments are providing support to us but the central government is not providing help. We nurse the ambition of managing the ports of eastern and western India by 2020, he added.
We want to set up ice plant, Aqua Clinic and many other facilities to make the co-operative profitable. We will inaugurate first aqua shop of the country in Guwahati in September and it is likely to be inaugurated by state agriculture minister, he informed
Speaking on the occasion Fishcopfed chairman T. Prasad Rao Dora said that fishery cooperatives can play an important role in Blue Revolution. We want to strengthen the fishery cooperatives which exist at the grass roots level.
Fishcopfed is focusing on the marketing to increase business volume of the beleaguered cooperative as huge amount has been pending towards the government in the form of service charge for the last 3 years, he lamented .
The Chief Executive of National Cooperative Union of India N.Satyanaryana said ”we have to increase the production of Inland Fisheries. Informing about the initiative, he said NCUI is conducting training programme for fishermen’ but without the government support the fishery sector can’t develop.
Skill development of fishermen is very important and there is a need to increase the storage capacity. He urged other cooperative societies’ representatives to come together to develop the fishery sector as NCDC is improving its financial condition.
