A delegation of fisheries cooperatives led by Fishcopfed Chairman Prakash Lonare met Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Friday in Delhi to apprise Fishcopfed’s effort to erect a network of cold storage for the preservation of fish.
Talking to Indiancooperative.com Mr Lonara sounded very enthusiastic on the Minister response. ‘Sharadji wanted us to go ahead with the project as we told him of our project of helping 1000 primary fisheries cooperatives in marketing fresh fish”, Lonare said.
Fishcopfed has collected data on the fisheries cooperatives which, according to its Managing Director are 15000 in number. “We have short-listed about one thousand primary fisheries cooperative societies which would be wired in the cold-storage network first” Lonare added.
Besides Chairman, the delegation to Minister comprised of Fishcopfed Vice-Chairman, its Managing Director, Nandu Patil, ICL representative Yashpal Bhola and others.
“I and our MD Mr Mishra are leaving for China next month to study preservation of fresh fish practiced in that country. There is ice-factory and cold storage attached to the fishing boat and it helps keep the fish fresh which in turn fetches good return from the market”, Lonare said.