A four members delegation of Andhra Pradesh met Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb yesterday to explore the possibility of investment in fishery sector of the state considering the supply gap against the daily demand.
Besides, discussing the prospect of the fishery in Tripura with the officials, they visited potential locations of the state. At present Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bangladesh are continued to be the main suppliers of fish to Tripura.
According to Chief Minister, Tripura is producing 72,273 MT fish against the annual demand of 96,454 MT and the state government has employed scientific intervention to increase fish production to meet the deficit of total 24,181 MT of fish which comes from the outside.
He apprised the prospective investors that fish production is one of the major sources of the income-generating sector to grow the state's economy and Tripura has the potential of cultivating fish seed and production of fish food, the innovation of technology and creation of new species of fish.
Deb told the delegation adding that the state government has targeted to achieve self-sufficiency in fish production in the next three years. About Rs 700 Cr of money was flown out for importing fish from outside state, which the state government has targeted to pluck by increasing domestic fish production.
According to officials, Tripura has created a huge number of water bodies under MGNREA in past few years though natural streams, rivers and water bodies were reduced substantially due to large scale encroachment and expansion of human activities.
However, the optimum level of utilization of water bodies has not been done yet due to an inadequate plan for fish production.
Moreover, over dependency on Bangladesh for fish import, increase the trade deficit between India and Bangladesh. The situation is expected to be improved soon as Bangladesh has withdrawn its restrictions on importing nine items from India through Akhaura land port and Srimantapur land custom station of Tripura.
Import restriction on nine Indian items including cashew nut, paper, sugar, generator, broken glass, chocolate, baby wipes, confectionary and bitumen has been withdrawn by Bangladesh from this month to cater their domestic markets, which will reduce the trade gap between two countries.
It was estimated that Bangladesh had exported various items to India of Rs 522.42 crore during the financial year 2018-19 while imported goods through seven land ports in Tripura to the neighbouring country were around Rs 14.66 crore.
