The Ministry of Commerce is speaking a language that will make environmentalists smile ear-to-ear. On a visit to the Andamans, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh announced that the islands should be developed as a biosecure zone.

Ramesh has his reasons. At stake is US$ 1.7 billion marine products exports, which has been suffering huge loses since 1995 when the White Spot Virus (WSV) hit the Indian mainland shrimp, the major chunk of our exports. Shrimps are grown in brackish water in coastal farms, but the original seed material are still collected from the wild. But WSV has afflicted even wild shrimps in the mainland making disease-free seeds scarce.

Thanks to its remote geographical location, the wild shrimp population in the Andamans have remained pathogen-free. It is now likely to become a international nursery for shrimp hatchlings. As there is no commercial shrimp culture in the Andamans, the possibility of wild stock getting contaminated is very low.

The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), through its Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture here, has now isolated about 3,500 a small number of disease-free shrimps. The development of this “Specific Pathogen-Free brood stock” puts India among the handful of countries to have mastered the technology.

But there is a twist in the tale. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) came up with a Rs 20-crore rehabilitation plan to set up shrimp farms in about 1,300 hectares of prime paddy fields submerged by the tsunami. ICAR and its scientists sold the idea to the administration and affected farmers. But once MPEDA and the Shrimp Exporters’ Association heard of the plan, they opposed the suggestion saying a “WSV was bound to jump from the farms to the wild population”. Jairam Ramesh had to fly in from New Delhi to chair a meeting of stakeholders and ensure that all interests are protected. He feels “Andamans is the best place to house this unique biosecure national shrimp facility,” but also wants that livelihood issues of the farmers to be adequately addressed. Ramesh favours a quick scientific reconciliation with international experts adjudicating the matter.