Fisheries Minister Sorokhaibam Rajen Singh on Wednesday distributed loan to 1,506 fish farmers of state through direct benefit transfer and informed that a total of Rs 7,03,84,000 and Rs 1,17,66,000 have been sanctioned from the Central and state share respectively for first instalment of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana 2020-2021,
During the distribution ceremony held at his office chamber at Secretariat, Rajen said that today’s beneficiaries were selected after thorough screening by visiting fish farm sites.
The loan was given under varied categories including general, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and women, he said. The subsidy amount for the general category is 40 per cent whereas the remaining subsidy for the remaining categories is 60 per cent, he said.
He said that fish, being one of the staple foods of Manipur, the state government is putting in efforts to make the state self-reliant in fish production. The department has initiated a process of leasing out government owned fish farms to private so that fish can be produced even by people who do not have land, the minister said.
Apart from promotion of indigenous fish by government, some fish farmers have even started rearing non-native fish species such as Hilsa, Ahila etc. in collaboration with Hyderabad based farm, he added while mentioning that the main objective of department is to reduce draining of state’s resources in importing ice packed fishes that even lead to spoil health.
While appealing to all the beneficiaries to extend their best possible effort to realise the state government’s mission to make Manipur a self-reliant in fish production, he advised them not to misuse the loan amount but to invest only in their farming activities.
