Kochi:
The city-based Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) is
planning to set up an aqua-technology park near Nedumbassery
International Airport. The park, first of its kind in the country,
will promote ornamental fish breeding and marketing in the
international market. In the last weeks state budget, Kerala
Finance Minister K Sankaranarayan had announced this project.
 MPEDA, which identified ornamental fish farming as one of its thrust
areas, had come up with this idea, for which Cochin International
Airport Ltd (CIAL) and the state government had shown a keen interest.
MPEDA has reached an agreement with CIAL, under which the latter will
lease out 20 hectors of land at Nedumbassery for setting up the park.
The project, which requires an investment of Rs 10 to 20 crore, will
have all the requirements for ornamental fish breeding and rearing
units meant for export market. The individual units in the park will
be sold to ornamental exporters, who can avail of the general
infrastructure facilities in the park.
As per the concept, the park will also house R&D units for
exporters benefit. In the first stage, the park will have six
farmers and an export area with a training-cum-administrative wing,
spread over an area of 4 hectares. It will have sufficient space for
future expansion and setting up of more farms if the demand picks up.
The management of the park will be entrusted to a governing body that
will have representatives of MPEDA, CIAL, entrepreneurs and fisheries
experts. As CIAL authorities greeted the proposal with great
enthusiasm, an MPEDA team consisting of assistant director K S Nair
and fisheries experts visited the site for assessing the geo-physical
conditions of the area.
Direct flights are now in operation to Singapore, which will be a key
factor as far as fish export is concerned - a reason suggested by
experts to qualify Nedumbassery as the ideal location for the park.
CIAL is planning to start direct flights to Europe - an added
advantage for the proposed project. Moreover, the land, which CIAL has
offered to give on lease, has good connectivity; fresh water, too, is
readily available.
The state government, meanwhile, has approached MPEDA with a proposal
to set up a park in Panangad, near Kochi. As the proposal is yet to
take a final shape, MPEDA is keeping its options, regarding the site
of the proposed park, open. The park will be set up with the support
of the Singapore governments Agri-Veterinary Authority (AVA), which
runs two such parks in that country.
Singapore, considered the largest exporter in this sector, has several
ornamental fish parks in the vicinity of its international airport. It
was through Infofish (Malaysia), a Food and Agricultural Organisation,
that MPEDA got in touch with AVA for help in preparing a project
report for setting up the park.
MPEDA plans to develop the ornamental fish industry in India to a
higher level in terms of production and export through this programme.
The present export of India consists mainly of wild fishes caught from
the northeast and a few dozens of bred exotic varieties.
Studies have revealed that the ornamental fish export through Chennai
might have crossed $0.2 million last year. With the park becoming a
reality, MPEDA had earlier planned to set up a similar park in Tamil
Nadu, and a team from AVA had even inspected the sites, as suggested
by the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation.
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