Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda said that steps will be taken to introduce electric motor boats for fishermen from next year due to the fuel shortage issue.

The minister expressed these views during the meeting of the Ministerial Consultative Committee on fisheries held in Parliament recently (29).

Accordingly, it is expected to introduce electric motor boats that can travel 100 kilometers using batteries and the cost is only Rs.86 per day to fishermen engaged in small fishing.

Minister Devananda also said that attention has also been paid for providing electricity generation facilities through solar panels and wind turbines for boats using kerosene and diesel.

State Minister of Fisheries Piyal Nishantha said that a special mobile service is being implemented successfully to solve the problems faced by the fishermen.

No canned fish imports without license

Meanwhile, the members drew the committee’s attention to the import of canned fish and the officials pointed out that no one has been allowed to import canned fish without a license.

Meanwhile, the need to encourage freshwater fishing to fulfil the protein requirements of the people was also discussed at the committee. For this purpose, the MPs requested to expand the programme of releasing fish fry into the reservoirs. The Minister informed that next year, a programme will be implemented to release fish fry to 2,500 selected fresh water reservoirs.

The members also drew the attention of the committee to the problems faced by fishermen in different parts of the country.

Deputy Speaker Ajith Rajapaksa, State Ministers Shantha Bandara, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, MPs Vijitha Herath, Chandima Weerakkody, Dilip Vedaarachchi, Upul Mahendra Rajapaksa, Sudarshan Denipitiya, Rajika Wickremasingha, Sahan Pradeep Withana, S.M.M. Musharraf, Kulasingam Dhileeban and officials of the Ministry of Fisheries were also present at the meeting.