Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has urged the central government to rescue aqua farmers, who are facing difficulties due to US tariffs and seeks moratorium on interest payment. To this end, he wrote separate letters to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Fisheries Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh on Sunday.
Along with the state government, he asserted that central assistance is also needed to help aqua farmers, and to resolve these problems. The Chief Minister has asked for financial assistance from the banks of aqua companies to exporters and a moratorium on interest payments for 240 days.
In his letter to the central ministers, CM Chandrababu said that steps should be taken such as providing interest subsidy and temporarily exempting the 5 percent GST on progen shrimp. With these measures, he suggested that attention should be paid to expanding the aqua market to countries other than the US.
He mentioned that the issues of entering into freight agreements with the respective countries should be examined so that aqua exports increase in the European Union, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Russia. He appealed to provide more clarity on the scheme of interim financial assistance to exporters, duties and tax relief on exports.
The CM said that the exporters had appealed to him that they were ready to supply seafood to European Union countries. He said that necessary steps need to be taken to increase domestic aqua marketing. For this, he asked for a corpus fund of Rs. 100 crore to be allocated.
CM Chandrababu stated in the letter that they are ready to set up cold storages, hygienic fish and seafood markets, and to form an AP Prawn Producers Coordination Committee to move aqua products directly from farmers to the markets. He wanted to take steps to create awareness that aqua products contain good protein and are a good fortified food.
For this, he suggested that the NFDB should enter into an understanding with various state governments. He demanded that fishermen be given one-time top-up loans of up to Rs. 1 lakh through Kisan Credit Card. He also demanded that regional offices of organizations like ICAR-CIBA and ICAR-NBFGR be set up in the state. He said that the state accounts for 80 percent of the national level shrimp fertilizer production and 34 percent of the marine product exports.