Despite several meetings with Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, FISHCOPFED has failed to get service charge released from the govt.
Sources say the Union Agriculture Minister’s instructions in the matter have yet to be carried out by the ministry. They blame the obstinate bureaucracy for this.
Fishcopfed Managing Director B.K.Mishra is sad about the non-payment of service charge that has seriously affected his organization’s financial situation. A co-op which saw a turnaround in its fortune is once again sliding down, lamented staffs of Fishcopfed.
”Our Chairman T.Prasad Dora met Union Agriculture Minister personally several times and urged him to release service charge as soon as possible but to no avail”, MD informed this correspondent.
“If the NDA Government wants to bring about Blue Revolution in the country till 2020, FISHCOPFED can also play an important role in this,” Mishra claimed.
Fishcopfed has prepared the biggest database on fishermen’s co-op societies in the country and insured nearly 46 lakh of fishermen so far. The database may come in handy for the govt, said a source close to Fishcopfed.
For four years in a row the service-charge has been held-up in the govt files forcing Fishcopfed to make desperate attempts to survive somehow. Not the one to accept defeat easily Fishcopfed has, meanwhile opened several new business lines to earn and stay afloat.
Besides CIFAX, it has also launched several other activities in order to make up for losses incurred on account of the held-up service charges on Insurance services to the fishermen. It has two mobile fish vans as of now but it intends increasing it to 20. It has four fish shops so far but it intends to increase the number to 50.
“We propose to go about the expansion through PPP model as we have not enough staff to man the growing activities. We invite our member-societies and others also to be part of the Fishcopfed venture”, said Mishra.
Fishcopfed has also begun All-India marketing of dry fish. Fish is dried at its unit in Gopalpur in Odisha through solar drying instead of Sun-drying. It has also embarked on production of fish tank and marketing of ornamental fish for the consumers of Delhi and NCR.