By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, October 22, 2016 : Odisha government on Saturday claimed that the state has doubled the farmers’ real income during the last decade through high value commercial activities in fishery and animal resource development sectors according to survey conducted in 2013.

This was informed by the secretary, fisheries and animal resource development Bishnupada Sethi at a review meeting on enhancing sea food export held here under the chairmanship of chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi.

Padhi asked the department to focus on building fishery infrastructure in the state in order to create new jobs in fish farming.

The state aims to achieve sea food export of worth Rs 20,000 crore in the next five years.

Total fish production in the state has grown consistently over last four years owing to financial and technical supports to fish farmers. The total fish production was 4,10,144 metric tonne in 2012-13, which grew to 4,13,889 metric tonne in 2013-14. It further went up to 4,69,548 metric tonne in 2014-15 and 5,21,278 metric tonne in 2015-16.

As per data released in the review meeting, 34 sea food exporters are operating in Odisha currently including 22 manufacturers and 12 merchants. Odisha’s sea food finds its major market in eastern Europe, Japan, China, Middle East and south eastern Asian countries.

With the completion of road and power connectivity to the aqua culture clusters the production cost in the state, the government expects that the sector would be more competitive and would fetch more income to the fish farmers.

Sethi underscored the need for developing infrastructure to 19 priority aquaculture clusters.

It may be mentioned here that 107 brackish aquaculture clusters have been identified in various places of the state mostly along the continental shelf of which 19 clusters have been taken up in first phase on priority basis.

The chief secretary directed the executing agencies to expedite the power supply work to these clusters and complete those in various phases from December 2016 to March 2017. Further, he asked the agencies to prepare a timeline for electrification of balance 88 clusters and complete the work within March 2018.