Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Mahinda Amaraweera instructed the Fisheries Department to make arrangements to implement an online program to register fishing vessels from 2018.
Fishing vessels are currently registered annually and it has become a huge inconvenience to fishermen.
They are required to travel all the way to Colombo from the hinterlands such as Jaffna, Batticaloa, Ampara and Mannar to get their fishing vessels registered which compelled the Minister to focus on implementing an alternative program.
Actions are underway to facilitate an online registration system in this regard.
Also, the Minister instructed the Director General of Fisheries to consider the idea of formulating a system to register vessels which will be newly purchased from 2018, once in every five years.
Currently there are 50,338 fishing vessels in Sri Lanka and 4,218 out of them are multiday fishing vessels while 719 are one day-vessels.
24,028 are outboard engine boats and 1,872 are artisanal vessels with an engine.
There are 19,501 vessels without engines.
Add new comment