Port Blair, April 13: The Department of Fisheries in association with Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) conducted a workshop on ‘Avenues and Opportunities of Seafood export from Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ on Thursday 13th April 2023. Shri G. Sudhakar, IAS, Secretary (Fisheries), A&N Administration inaugurated the programme.
In his address, the Secretary (Fisheries) highlighted the steps being taken by the A&N Administration for boosting direct seafood export from the Islands. He also exhorted the need of focusing the seafood business into ‘High Value Low Volume Species’ like Groupers, Snappers, Lobsters and Crabs etc. for better revenue through export. The utilization of submerged areas to undertake Aquaculture activities especially for shrimp farming through PMMSY programme was also underlined by the Secretary (Fisheries). The traders and exporters were advised to take benefit of the workshop for registration of their chilled fish establishments as per the required quality compliance for better acceptance of Andaman branded Seafood in the International Market.
On the occasion, multilingual pamphlets (Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Bangla) of PMMSY Programme devised by Department of Fisheries was also released for intensification of the extension activities and better dissemination of the scheme components among all the sections of Society.
During the inaugural session, Shri Vikram Singh, Director of Fisheries and Shri S.U Maheshwar Rao, GBM-NFDB, Hyderabad addressed the gathering on the intervention being initiated by the Administration to boost export of seafood and capacity development. Dr. Ansar Ali, Deputy Director, MPEDA Chennai Regional Office delivered lecture on Export Promotional Activities, Registration Procedure and Global Status of Seafood Export and emphasized on setting up of more number of chilled fish packaging units in Andaman and Nicobar Islands in light of opening international air route from Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Dr. Joy V Thomas, CEO, NETFISH highlighted the importance of hygienic handling of fish catch from the level of Harvest to marketing for better export earnings and reduction of post-harvest loss. Shri Sarvanan Scientific Officer, RGCA explained about the breeding, seed production and rearing of potential aquaculture species like Sea bass, Tiger Prawn and Mud Crab etc. and the activities of RGCA in Aquaculture sector. The RGCA assured supply of fish seeds on request of fish farmers of Andaman and Nicobar Islands for initiating Barcksih water aquaculture activities.
The traders and exporters actively participated in the discussion during the workshop and the team of experts from MPEDA cleared all the queries raised during the discussion regarding registration of the establishment, layout plan of various processing infrastructures and export requirements of various countries. 30 leading fish traders, representative of fishers, fish processing units participated in the workshop.
Earlier, Dr. K. Gopal Joint Director (Fisheries) welcomed the gathering and the workshop ended by the vote of thanks by Shri Abdul Salam, Assistant Director of Fisheries (Ext &Trg).