The government is going to enter into a tripartite agreement with the Department of Fisheries of the Government of India and the National Bank For Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD) for sanctioning a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) loan of ₹450 crore for the construction of three fishing harbours — Uppada in East Godavari district, Machilipatnam Phase-II and Nizampatnam Phase-II, according to G.O No. 116 issued by Special Chief secretary (Fisheries) Poonam Malakondaiah.
It was stated that each one of the projects will be provided ₹150 crore. The total project cost is nearly ₹1,016 crore — Uppada ₹350 crore, Machilipatnam ₹286 crore and Nizampatnam ₹379 crore).
The Infrastructure and Investment Department is the implementing agency and the Fisheries Department has been permitted to avail NIDA (NABARD Infrastructure Development Assistance) loan for 90% of gap funding (over and above the FIDF loan) to the tune of approximately ₹509 crore.
The government of Andhra Pradesh will be sanctioning ₹56 crore towards 10% gap funding as its share in the total project cost.
Administrative sanction
The State government had earlier given administrative sanction for ₹1,016 crore to take up the three projects and permitted fund-raising from the Government of India for meeting a part of the expenditure, after the Commissioner of Fisheries wrote a letter in May seeking necessary clearances from the State government.
