Fisheries Development Schemes in India: An Overview

India is the third-largest fish-producing country in the world and the second-largest in aquaculture, contributing nearly 7% of global fish production. The fisheries sector supports the livelihoods of over 16 million people directly and many more along the supply chain. Yet for decades, the sector struggled with inadequate infrastructure, high post-harvest losses, and limited access to institutional finance. To address these gaps and unlock the sector’s full potential, the Government of India has rolled out a series of targeted schemes through the Department of Fisheries. Three of the most significant are the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), the Neel Kranti Mission (Blue Revolution), and the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF). Together, these schemes form the backbone of India’s strategy for modernizing and scaling its fisheries sector.

Why fisheries development matters for India 🔗

Fisheries and aquaculture are far more than just food production activities. They are critical for national nutrition, rural income, and export earnings. Fisheries and aquaculture employ approximately 16 million people directly, with millions more involved in processing, trade, and distribution. India’s seafood exports have consistently made it one of the top foreign exchange earners in the agriculture sector. Despite this, the sector has historically faced structural weaknesses – poor cold chain infrastructure, fragmented markets, declining marine fish stocks, and inadequate credit access for small-scale fishers. These are precisely the problems that the following schemes aim to solve.

Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) 🔗

Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, which translates to the Prime Minister’s Fisheries Wealth Scheme, is the most comprehensive fisheries development programme India has ever launched. It was formally launched in September 2020 with a focus on doubling the incomes of fish farmers and fishers, and is part of the broader Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The scheme operates across all states and union territories and was initially planned for a five-year period from FY 2020-21 to FY 2024-25, later extended to FY 2025-26.

Funding and structure 🔗

The scheme has been approved with a total investment of Rs. 20,050 crore, comprising a central share of Rs. 9,407 crore, a state share of Rs. 4,880 crore, and a beneficiary contribution of Rs. 5,763 crore. It functions as an umbrella scheme with two components: a Central Sector Scheme, where the central government bears the full cost, and a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), where costs are shared between the centre and states. For beneficiary-oriented activities, the central assistance goes up to 40% of project cost for general category beneficiaries and 60% for SC/ST and women beneficiaries.

Key targets and focus areas 🔗

PMMSY aims to increase fish production from 13.75 million metric tonnes in FY 2018-19 to 22 million metric tonnes, reduce post-harvest losses from 20-25% to around 10%, and generate 55 lakh additional direct and indirect employment opportunities. One of its primary export goals is to increase seafood export earnings to Rs. 1 lakh crore by 2024-25.

The scheme places strong emphasis on activities with high employment potential, such as seaweed cultivation and ornamental fish farming. It also supports fishing vessel insurance, nucleus breeding centres, aquaculture in saline and alkaline areas, and the development of fisheries and aquaculture start-ups and incubators. A cluster or area-based approach is adopted to create fisheries clusters, which promotes economies of scale and better market linkages for small producers.

Sub-scheme: PM-MKSSY 🔗

A notable extension of PMMSY is the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY). This sub-scheme was launched to formalize the fisheries sector and provide support to fisheries micro and small enterprises, with an investment of over Rs. 6,000 crore across four years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27. It extends benefits such as institutional credit access and aquaculture insurance through the National Fisheries Development Program (NFDP) portal.

Neel Kranti Mission (Blue Revolution) 🔗

Before PMMSY, the Neel Kranti Mission – commonly referred to as the Blue Revolution – was India’s flagship fisheries development programme. Launched during 2015-16, the mission was built around a vision of achieving economic prosperity for fishers and fish farmers while contributing to food and nutritional security through the sustainable use of water resources, with careful attention to bio-security and environmental concerns.

Objectives of the mission 🔗

The Neel Kranti Mission set out a clear set of goals for India’s fisheries sector. These included fully tapping the country’s fish potential in both inland and marine sectors, transforming fisheries into a modern industry through new technologies, and doubling fishers’ incomes by improving post-harvest infrastructure, marketing, and e-commerce linkages. The mission also sought to triple export earnings and ensure food security at the national level.

The Government of India’s production target under the Neeli Kranti Mission was to enhance fish output from 11.41 MMT in 2016-17 to 15 MMT by 2019-20. The scheme ran from 2015-16 to 2019-20 with a central outlay of Rs. 3,000 crore and adopted an integrated approach covering both marine and inland fisheries, targeting a sustained annual growth rate of 6-8%.

Key components and achievements 🔗

The Blue Revolution scheme merged all existing fisheries-related sub-schemes under a single umbrella, covering areas such as deep-sea fishing, mariculture, the activities of the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), and strengthening of the fisheries database and GIS systems. Under the scheme’s inland fisheries component, 22,607 hectares were developed for pisciculture, 535 fish seed hatcheries were established, and 11 brood banks were set up for key species including Mahaseer, Rohu, and Pangasius. On the marine side, six new fishing harbours were established and two existing ones were upgraded, along with significant investment in cold chain infrastructure including ice plants, cold storage units, and refrigerated transport vehicles.

The mission encouraged private investment, entrepreneurship, and institutional finance as key strategies for scaling up the sector – a philosophy that was carried forward and expanded under PMMSY.

Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) 🔗

Infrastructure has historically been the weakest link in India’s fisheries value chain. The Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) was created specifically to address this gap. The Department of Fisheries set up the FIDF to support the creation of fisheries infrastructure in both marine and inland sectors, with the aim of augmenting fish production to achieve the 15 million tonne target set under the Blue Revolution, and further scaling to 20 million tonnes by 2022-23.

Fund size, duration, and financial terms 🔗

The Union Cabinet approved the FIDF with a total fund size of Rs. 7,522.48 crore. The scheme was originally operational from 2018-19 to 2022-23, and has since been extended for another three years up to 2025-26. Concessional finance is channelled through Nodal Loaning Entities (NLEs) – primarily NABARD, the National Cooperatives Development Corporation (NCDC), and all scheduled banks. Eligible entities can avail loans covering up to 80% of the estimated project cost, with an interest subvention of up to 3% per annum. Repayment is structured over a maximum period of 12 years, including a two-year moratorium on principal repayment.

Who can access FIDF? 🔗

FIDF is open to a wide range of eligible entities: state governments and union territories, state-owned corporations, fisheries cooperative federations, panchayat raj institutions, self-help groups (SHGs), NGOs, private companies, entrepreneurs, women, and persons with disabilities. This broad eligibility base is deliberate – it ensures that both public agencies and private stakeholders can invest in fisheries infrastructure.

Infrastructure covered and results 🔗

FIDF supports a wide range of infrastructure: fishing harbours, fish landing centres, ice plants, cold storage, refrigerated transport, modern fish markets, brood banks, hatcheries, fish seed farms, fish processing units, feed mills, cage culture systems, deep-sea fishing vessels, disease diagnostic laboratories, and mariculture and aquatic quarantine facilities.

The results from the first phase of FIDF are tangible. A total of 121 fisheries infrastructure projects with an investment cost of Rs. 5,588.63 crore were approved. The completed projects created safe landing and berthing facilities for over 8,100 fishing vessels, enhanced fish landing by 1.09 lakh tonnes, and generated around 2.5 lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities – benefiting approximately 3.3 lakh fishers and stakeholders.

How these three schemes work together 🔗

PMMSY, the Neel Kranti Mission, and FIDF are not isolated programmes – they form a layered and complementary policy architecture. The Neel Kranti Mission (2015-2020) laid the groundwork by integrating all fisheries sub-schemes and establishing production and infrastructure targets. FIDF (from 2018 onwards) provided the dedicated financial mechanism to mobilize investment for building the infrastructure that the sector needed. PMMSY (from 2020) then built on both, bringing a larger fund corpus, a broader coverage of activities, and an explicit focus on fisher welfare, sustainability, and formalization of the sector. FIDF is specifically designed to complement and consolidate the achievements of PMMSY, making these schemes mutually reinforcing rather than redundant.

Taken together, they address the fisheries sector across three critical dimensions: production enhancement, infrastructure creation, and fishers’ welfare – the three pillars needed for a genuinely sustainable Blue Revolution in India.

What do you think? With India targeting 22 million metric tonnes of fish production and Rs. 1 lakh crore in seafood exports, do you think the current scheme framework adequately addresses the needs of small-scale and artisanal fishers who make up the majority of the sector? And given that FIDF relies heavily on concessional loans rather than direct grants, how effectively can marginal fish farmers – who may lack collateral or credit history – access these funds?

References

1. https://www.ibef.org/government-schemes/pradhan-mantri-matsya-sampada-yojana
2. https://dof.gov.in/
3. https://pwonlyias.com/pradhan-mantri-matsya-sampada-yojana-pmmsy-scheme/
4. https://pmmsy.dof.gov.in/
5. https://testbook.com/ias-preparation/pradhan-mantri-matsya-sampada-yojana
6. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=152138&ModuleId=3
7. https://fisheries.assam.gov.in/portlets/blue-revolution-integrated-development-and-management-of-fisheries
8. https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/blue-revolution/
9. https://nfdb.gov.in/PDF/Blue%20Revolution%20Final.pdf
10. https://nfdb.gov.in/PDF/V2Blue%20%20Revolution%20Final.pdf
11. https://www.fidf.in/
12. https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/cabinet-approves-extension-of-fisheries-and-aquaculture-infrastructure-development-fund-fidf/
13. https://nfdb.gov.in/PDF/FIDF-FAQ.pdf
14. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2004229&reg=3&lang=2