Union Minister for Tourism, Culture & Development of North Eastern G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday emphasized that all the women should be role models by developing startups related to fisheries activities which plays a key role as a livelihood activity across the country.
Union Minister Reddy spoke this as chief guest at the National Workshop for “Women Entrepreneurship Development in Fisheries Sector” organised by National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), in coordination with National Institute for MSME here. Earlier, the Union Minister also interacted with the women entrepreneurs.
The aim of the workshop is to encourage large number of Women entrepreneurs in Fisheries sector and also to create a platform for exploring the various opportunities, provisions available under various schemes such as “Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampadan Yojana (PMMSY)& Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) for women fishers, fish farmers & entrepreneurs by Government of India for the benefits & empowerment of women.
The workshop also highlighted the bottlenecks being faced by entrepreneurs or private investors in accessing the bank finance, procedure of bank loan sanction and repayments, interest subvention and also on the participation of the cooperative sector, the role played by the State or UT governments. Later, Dr C Suvarna, Chief Executive, NFDB, addressed the gathering by presenting initiatives of NFDB doing for the sector by quoting few successful women entrepreneurs.
Dr B MeenaKumari, Former DDG (Fy.), ICAR has given a keynote on status of women in fisheries sector & financial aids provided by various government schemes and Officials from Department of Fisheries Telangana & Bihar have shared their support in developing and promoting Government schemes. Dr Prithvi Rani, official of Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries has explained about provisions available under Central Government Schemes such as PMMSY, KCC &FIDF . The other participants attended the workshop was NABARD & Punjab National Bank they detailed about credit facilities & bankable projects.
State Fisheries officials from 13 states & women entrepreneurs fromAssam, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have participated in the workshop & presented their activities and shared their experiences during the workshop.