October 12, 2024

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Battered by rough weather, seafood sector seeks Centre’s aid

The crisis-ridden seafood sector has sought the Centre’s aid for the launch of ₹2,five hundred-crore under MEIS (Products Exports from India Scheme) since April last yr.

MEIS refunds are pending with the authorities which, in change, has put tremendous tension on the working capital specifically on MSME models in the sector, said Alex K Ninan, President of Seafood Exporters Association of India – Kerala area.

Rocketing curiosity charges

He extra that the banking institutions have not waived any curiosity or their costs all through the lockdown interval. In its place, they have granted only extra loans with a greater charge of curiosity by withholding promissory notes and personal securities in contrast to the government’s purchase.

In his Spending budget wish listing, he said that the RBI should notify banking institutions to extend the overdue packing credit rating from 120 to a hundred and eighty times as a speed measure from a person yr and restructure the curiosity payments. He said that credit rating ratings are finished by organizations like Crisil under recommendations from banking institutions and lots of models have been downgraded owing to the present circumstance. Primarily based on the findings of the rating organizations, banking institutions lend loans, improvements and charge curiosity.

This has become a tool for banking institutions to deny loans and charge greater interests.They should provide non permanent working capital at subsidised charges to tide about the working capital challenges and credit rating ratings should not be a standards for now, he extra.

Ninan extra that the non-payments from importers in China has created a severe financial crisis for the seafood sector with the authorities not including the sector in the Kamat committee which recommended for a bank reduction deal of twenty per cent extra funding.

The ₹6,000-crore seafood sector in Kerala has been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and factories are witnessing acute raw material shortage. The fishing sector is intensely dependent on higher value catches of shrimp, squid, cuttle fish, octopus, clams and fishes. As a result, he urged the authorities to provide fishermen subsidy on diesel, fishing nets, fishing gears, financial aid to equip them for undertaking into deep sea fishing.

The All India Shrimp Hatcheries Association said that major producers these as hatcheries and farmers should get export positive aspects which is not accessible to them now. D Ramraj, President of the Association, urged the authorities to choose methods to get rid of the import responsibility on shrimp broodstock and hatchery feeds as properly as reduce the aquatic quarantine charge equally to other plant and animal quarantines.

Credit rating assure

Rajmanohar Somasundaram, CEO, Aquaconnect, prompt the creation of a credit rating assure instrument to handle bare minimum price tag safety for shrimp farmers dependent on mutual agreement in between farmers and shrimp exporters. This will insulate farmers from worldwide price tag fluctuations since 99 per cent of the shrimp produced in India are exported.

“We are anticipating a slew of measures from the Spending budget 2021 to make improvements to the fisheries competitiveness that should concentration on addressing the significant gaps in fish generation and productiveness, access to finance, write-up-harvest infrastructure and management, modernizsation of the sector, and also for the welfare of the fishers and fish farmers,”, he extra.