CM Jagan Releases Rs 161 cr for ONGC-affected Fishermen

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has released Rs 161.86 crore for 23,458 fishermen families displaced by the ONGC pipelines in the BR Ambedkar Konaseema and Kakinada districts. He said an amount of Rs 69,000 each would be directly credited into their accounts at the rate of Rs 11,500 per month for six months. This is the fifth tranche of the financial compensation being paid to families that have lost their livelihood due to the laying of ONGC pipelines.

He said so far, the government has released Rs 647.44 crore towards financial assistance for the displaced families. Releasing the amount from the Camp Office here on Tuesday, the CM said the ONGC and the officials have become proactive in extending the financial assistance to the affected fishermen families. He said, “The government’s decision would benefit 16,408 and 7,050 families in Ambedkar Konaseema and Kakinada districts respectively. We also repaid Rs 78 crore owed by the Gujarat state petroleum corporation during the TD rule, which had neglected more than 16,000 affected fishermen families.”

The CM said the YSRC government was giving top priority to fishermen development and offered Rs 538 crore in the past five years. It worked with dedication for development of the fisheries sector. Saying that he wanted to inaugurate the Juvvaladinne fishing harbour



virtually, Jagan Mohan Reddy said he had decided against it as he wanted to visit the harbour and interact with the fishermen personally.

He said that so far Rs 538 crore has been paid to more than 1.07 lakh families under the YSR Matsyakara Bharosa as they could not go fishing during the banned period between April 15 and June 15. The government has also enhanced the financial assistance under the scheme from Rs 4,000 in TD term to Rs 11,000 in an unprecedented manner after YSRC came to power. He said the subsidy on diesel was also increased to Rs 9 per litre from Rs 6. A sum of Rs 130 crore was paid on 20,000 boats so far.

The state government has introduced the system of paying Rs 5 lakh as compensation and depositing Rs 5 lakh in bank accounts within a period of six months to the families of the fishermen who died while fishing. This has benefitted 175 families. “The government has also paid Rs 3,500 crore in subsidy benefiting 40,850 families of aqua farmers, as they are supplied electricity at Rs 1.50 paise per unit. So far, Rs 4,913 crore was spent on these schemes.” The government has also been taking steps to develop the blue economy alongside the 974 km long coastline, building 10 fishing harbours, six fish land centres and four new ports,” the CM said.