The conventional financing of industrial projects as well as business proposals are undergoing several innovations and Aquaculture projects are no exception. However, an analysis of financing of Aquaculture projects in the last decade does not indicate severe disruption as in the case of other industries. This may be due to large number of unorganised entities in this segment and also on account of popular misconceptions. Banks, as per RBI mandate, treat financing aquaculture projects as Priority Sector Lending and provide all incentives as applicable to Agricultural projects. Several industry associations such as FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM also organise seminars and conferences to highlight the importance of Aquaculture in improving livelihood of masses and also in promoting entrepreneurship. The respective Ministries of State and Central Governments also provide special incentives and subsidies to fisheries projects. Still in respect of Aquaculture enterprises, India remains in second place globally with China far ahead of it both in terms of volume and exports. Since Finance plays a crucial role in promoting aquaculture projects in a big way and contributes significantly to increase in GDP and per capita income with minimum investment, recent path braking developments in this direction are discussed in this paper
Many of the several thousands of aquaculture projects require corporatisation to avail the benefit of liberal and cheap finance available internationally in the form of External Commercial Borrowings, Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds, ADRs, GDRs, Euro Bonds, etc. They need to be educated on the advantages of converting into public limited companies or LLPs so that they can reap the benefits of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation of Indian economy by accessing global financial markets. Special Aquaculture Zones may be established in large numbers to derive the advantage of zero GST and low cost borrowings. Industrial Clusters also need to be established to derive synergy, marginal and opportunity cost benefits
Several small enterprises have taken advantage of accessing capital in SME platforms in BSE and NSE recently and Aquaculture projects need to take advantage of such large scale funding for achieving economies of scale and for increasing India's output significantly. There are immense opportunities to form Joint Ventures with companies abroad and access funds through FDI route and also technical and market collaborations. The author of this article was personally and successfully associated in one such JV for a marine food company.
While MUDRA Bank has liberalised availability of finance under Mudra Loans Scheme for aquaculture projects as well, the availment is not significant. This needs to be popularised among the existing beneficiaries and prospective entrepreneurs. Similarly availability of collateral free loans under CGTMSE Scheme needs to be brought to the notice of beneficiaries through seminars etc and workshops organised by all stake holders
Further procedural guidelines have to be developed to cover a a large number of beneficiaries under Fisheries Infrastructure Development Fund announced by the Govt of India which is available at an interest rate of 6%pa with repayment period not exceeding 12 years. A Compendium of technically feasible and economically viable Project Profiles in aquaculture needs to be published with several projects with an outlay not exceeding Rs 50 lakhs as lack of information on viable and profitable aquaculture projects is cited as main bottleneck.
In sum, Aquaculture projects with very high IRR and immense potential for achieving CAGR of minimum 15% annually need to take advantage of new innovative strategies in financing them to achieve all round development both from domestic and global financial markets