India has supported the initial observations at the General Council meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that was held in view of discussing reduction in subsidy in the fisheries sector.
However it has said that before removing subsidies special initiatives should e taken so that the small fishermen are not left at a disadvantage to large scale fishermen and businesses.
The WTO has for years tried to reach a consensus to remove what it terms as “bad subsidy” which are detrimental to the global mechanism. The WTO estimates that subsidies over 15 billion dollars subsidies can be done away with.
However developing countries and under developed countries especially the Asian and African ones have always raised the issue that the subsidies they provide are in accordance to the state of economy in the respective countries.
The debate is not only limited to fishing but transverse to different fields especially in Agriculture where India has demanded the rules to be amended to make a level playing field for all the nations before the process of scrapping subsidy is taken up.
India has demanded that only those countries that have a per capita gross national income of less than 5000$ should be exempted from subsidy reduction commitments to provide them with an equal opportunity.
It is a very important moment for the country as the government looks set to boost fishermen income through various schemes that have been recently launched like the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) to help the fishermen to recover from losses sustained during the lockdown.
India stands at a crucial juncture and as it sets to increase its marine resources it should make sure that its interests are kept safe and that it does not get a raw deal from the WTO.
