C O V E R S T O R Y
The Coastal Aquaculture Authority ( Amendment ) Bill , 2023
The Act addresses the long-pending demands of aquaculture farmers and stakeholders to remove the ambiguities and amend some of the provisions to make this legislation progressive and decrease the regulatory burden .
The Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act now ensures that the registration granted under Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act shall prevail and be treated as valid permission under CRZ Notification with the express intention of enabling lakhs of small marginal aquaculture farmers to avoid the possible need for obtaining CRZ clearances from multiple agencies .
The principal Act has a provision of imprisonment for a period up to 3 years for carrying out coastal aquaculture without registration . This appears to be a very harsh punishment
for an offence of purely civil nature and hence the amendment bill replaced the same with suitable civil instruments such as penalty in line with the principle of decriminalizing civil transgressions .
The Amendment Bill provides for broad basing “ coastal aquaculture ” to comprehensively cover all activities of coastal aquaculture under the purview of this Act and to remove the ambiguity existing in the Principal Act between the farm and other verticals of coastal aquaculture . This is likely to ensure that no coastal aquaculture activity is left out of the ambit of the Act and operate in an environmentally hazardous manner .
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BioVoiceNews | August 2023