Biometric cards issued to 70 percent of fishermen in coastal Andhra

Under the central government's scheme, biometric identity cards have been issued to 69 percent of six lakh fishermen in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh.

Chief Secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao on Tuesday directed officials to ensure that the remaining fishermen are also issued the identity cards. Fishermen have to carry the cards while going for fishing in the sea.

The chief secretary was presiding over a meeting of the apex committee on coastal secretary. Officials from navy, coast guard, fisheries, ports, home and finance departments are the members of the committee.

Initiatives on coastal security in 974 km coastal area, functioning of radar stations, monitoring of fishing boats, issuing of ID cards to fishermen and other related were discussed in the meeting.

There are about six lakh fishermen in 554 coastal villages. There are 349 fish landing centres in the region.

Commissioner of customs S.K. Rahman said that an awareness meeting on anti-smuggling was held with the people living in the coastal villages.

The chief secretary directed all the coastal district fisheries officers to organize regularly awareness programmes on security related aspects such as online registration of boats, carrying of boat registration certificates and biometric cards while going for fishing in sea, painting of fishing vessels as per the colour code assigned to Andhra Pradesh, restrictions of fishing in security channels, port limits, oil platforms, offshore installations, identification and intimation of unknown fishing boats in their coastal waters to coastal security police and coast guard.