National Fishworkers Forum has been demanding a separate Ministry for Fisheries with the specific objective of addressing the concerns of the small scale and traditional fishworkers along with other coastal communities. However, it is disappointing that the government has rejected this long standing demand and converted it to a mere department. Following the reports on media it seems that the focus of this department will on boosting the export of the marine inland resources rather than focusing on the issues fishworkers face. While growth in budgeted allocations may be high, fisheries continue to lag behind animal husbandry and dairying with total allocations to fisheries amounting to just 41% and 38% of those made to animal husbandry and dairying respectively. Near half of budgeted fisheries allocations are towards establishment expenditure involved in running the Fisheries Institutes, whose allocations grew almost 30% in 2019-20. The Fisheries Institutes consists of Fisheries Survey of India, National institute of Fisheries post-harvest technology & Training, Central Institute of Coastal Engineering for fisheries, Central institute for Fishermen Nautical Engineering & Training and Directorate of Aquatic Animal Health and Quarantine. Other central expenditure towards the fisheries sector includes allocations to statutory and regulatory bodies like the Coastal Aquaculture Authority and autonomous bodies like the National Fisheries Development Board. The former witnessed growth of 16%, allocations in 2019-20 amounting to Rs. 4.5 crores while the latter saw continuation of the same budgetary allocation of Rs. 100 crores in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Most of the budget allocations made by the NDA II government concentrates on infrastructure development not for the small scale and traditional fishworkers but for research and establishment purposes. The components under the restructured blue revolution does not focus on the livelihood issues of the fishworkers and is not clear as to what will be spent for the welfare of fishworkers. The overall thrust of the budget looks at scaling up the infrastructure and exploiting the oceans and the inland rivers without making any clear-cut safeguards and also not keeping in mind a holistic approach to safeguarding the environment. Many a times the fishworkers livelihood are affected by these surveys and the search for resources in the sea as in the case of ONGC surveys happening in Maharashtra. The first phase of the World Bank Assisted Integrated Coastal Management Programme saw rigorous policy shifts especially hitting the nail on the coffin for the coastal communities in India especially in the last year budget year. The programme, which had been a pilot project for West Bengal, Odisha and Gujarat, is now expanded to all the coastal states as well as the Union Territories. NFF expresses its concern towards these schemes, which uproots the livelihood of small scale and traditional fishworkers. No allocation for the saving and relief schemes for fishworkers has been envisioned in the budget. NFF also takes note that this budget is being presented in the absence of an Economic Survey and also there was no defined analytical context for the budget especially in the midst of an agrarian crisis and the uncertainty of job creations. The government budget is infact indicates the context of the upcoming elections. We hope that these are not yet another set of jhumlas’ and NFF clearly will come to the streets to roll back the anti fishworker policies announced by this government especially the Coastal Regulation Zone 2019. A mere department for fisheries will be toothless without adequate safeguards for the communities and the environment at large. This budget reflects that there is nothing in store for the communities however, but is paving the path for the corporates to clear out the existing fishing communities from the coast.