CHENNAI: Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar on Monday submitted a memorandum to Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh, urging the Centre to hand over the management of the Chennai fishing harbour to Tamil Nadu. Besides, he also wanted the Union minister to expedite the pending allocations for Tamil Nadu under various schemes.
The minister, in his memorandum, said the Chennai fishing harbour was constructed with 100 per cent grant from the Ministry of Agriculture and became operational in 1984.
The Management of Chennai fishing harbour was handed over to the Board of Trustees of the Port of Chennai by the order of the Union Ministry of Agriculture on February 19, 1985.
However, the Department of Fisheries of the Tamil Nadu government has been carrying out the infrastructure works, renovation and upgradation of the fishing harbour from time to time. In recent years, the Fisheries department carried out major infrastructure development in the harbour to a tune of Rs 9606.39 lakh.
The State requested Centre in 2013 to hand over the management of the harbour. Subsequently, a resolution was passed at the Chennai Port Trust Board meeting on November 27, 2015, to transfer the management and maintenance of the harbour to the Fisheries department.
In continuation, the Centre had raised a few queries on the proposal. All queries were suitably addressed.
The minister said the Tamil Nadu had envisaged a requirement of Rs 1,000 crore under the FIDF.
Out of this, project reports for five major projects at an estimate of Rs 636 crore had been submitted.
DPRs for an estimated cost of Rs 364 crore were under preparation and would be sent to the Centre at the earliest.
The release of balance funds under Centrally-sponsored schemes were the issues raised by the minister.