Thiruvananthapuram: The government has neither signed nor cancelled any agreement on deep-sea fishing with EMCC International, said fisheries and culture minister Saji Cherian.
In reply to a starred question in the assembly, he said that in the fisheries policy of 2019, it has been clarified that the government would pressurise the Centre to take necessary steps to ensure that foreign trawlers or trawlers of indigenous corporates are not given permission for deep-sea fishing and also to ensure that they do not enter country’s territorial waters.
He said that the state has not made any changes in the fisheries policy.
The minister said that the fisheries department did not conduct talks with any company, during the previous government’s tenure.
An MoU between EMCC International India Pvt Ltd and the state government on January 10, 2020, for promotion and upgradation of the “deep-sea fishing industry”, with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore, had ended in a major row.
Though the MoU was inked and cancelled later, the government has been citing technicalities that an agreement for the government has to be inked by the concerned department secretary, whereas the MoU was signed by the KSIDC managing director, and it is technically invalid.