Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India

Choose the right component

• Building a hatchery or nursery: the hatchery and nursery components of PMMSY. This is the enterprise-type route.
• A fisheries or aquaculture startup: the innovation component of PMMSY, PM-MKSSY, and the Fisheries Startup Grand Challenge 2.0 when a round is open.
• Needing a loan for fisheries infrastructure: FIDF, through a Nodal Loaning Entity.
• A fish farmer, self-help group or fisher cooperative: the pond, cage, seaweed and bivalve components. These are farm and community level, not startup programmes.

How applications work

• For beneficiary components, start with the fisheries department of your State or Union Territory. It is the nodal department, and proposals are routed through it.
• Hatchery proposals go from the State or UT to the National Fisheries Development Board and the central Department.
• For PM-MKSSY, register on the National Fisheries Digital Platform.
• For FIDF, apply and track through the Board's dedicated portal.
• Startup proposals under PMMSY are taken up as detailed project reports.

Prepare your proposal

• A detailed project report, or a self-contained proposal where the component allows it.
• Documentary evidence of land that is free of encumbrances.
• Bank consent for your share of the cost, or a self-declaration that you will fund it yourself.
• The clearances your unit needs.
• For a hatchery, a plan to supply seed to farmers at an affordable price.

How selection works

Startup and innovation proposals are evaluated case by case, with unit cost assessed per proposal. No fixed scoring process is published for the other components.

Check the current status first

The scheme period in the 2020 guidelines ran to 2024-25, and a 2025 note reports an extension to 2025-26. Ask your State fisheries department whether proposals are being taken now and which rules apply.

The Department of Fisheries is the Government of India department for fisheries and aquaculture. It sits under the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying and is based in New Delhi. It is not an incubator and does not run cohorts. It runs central schemes, the main one being the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), along with a set of startup and enterprise measures around it.

How its schemes work

PMMSY is a centrally sponsored scheme made up of many components. Most are aimed at the person who builds and runs a unit: a hatchery, a grow-out pond, a sea cage, a seaweed raft. Assistance is a share of the unit cost, and the share is higher for SC/ST and women beneficiaries than for the general category. The beneficiary meets the rest through a bank loan or their own funds.

The Department of Fisheries of each State or Union Territory is the nodal department for planning and carrying out the scheme there. Proposals are therefore routed through the State or UT, not sent straight to the central Department.

Hatcheries and nurseries

The enterprise end of PMMSY is its hatchery and nursery components: freshwater finfish hatcheries, freshwater scampi hatcheries, brackish water hatcheries, small marine finfish hatcheries and marine finfish nurseries. An applicant files a detailed project report, or a self-contained proposal for a marine nursery. It comes with documentary evidence of land free of encumbrances, either bank consent or a self-declaration for the part not covered by the subsidy, and the necessary clearances.

A freshwater finfish hatchery has a stated minimum capacity and area. The beneficiary must supply seed from the assisted hatchery to farmers at an affordable price.

Ponds, cages, seaweed and other farm-level components

Other PMMSY components cover new grow-out ponds in freshwater, brackish and saline areas, biofloc units, first-crop inputs, open-sea cages, seaweed rafts and bivalve cultivation. These are written for fish farmers, self-help groups and fisher cooperatives rather than for startups. The guidelines name fishermen and fisherwomen cooperative societies, SC/ST cooperative societies and women self-help groups as beneficiaries of the seaweed components. The pond text refers to "the farmer or the entrepreneur", so a founder building a larger commercial farm may fit, but these are livelihood-scale components and not a startup programme.

Startups and innovation

The PMMSY guidelines name the establishment and handholding of fisheries and aquaculture startups as a priority intervention. They include an innovation component for startups, incubator centres and pilot projects, taken up as detailed project reports and judged case by case.

A 2025 government note reports that 39 startup project proposals had been approved under the Entrepreneur Model of PMMSY. It also reports that, as of July 2025, 163 new project proposals from States, Union Territories and private entrepreneurs had been approved in 2025-26. In September 2024 the government announced three fisheries incubation centres to promote 100 fisheries startups, cooperatives, FPOs and SHGs.

The Department also launched the Fisheries Startup Grand Challenge 2.0. Trade press reports that it was launched at the Fisheries Startup Conclave 2.0 in Hyderabad on 8 March 2025, to support startups in manufacturing and related areas with funding and structured incubation from ICAR-CIFT, the National Fisheries Development Board or other affiliated institutions. Reports differ on how much funding each of the ten winning startups receives, so we do not state one.

PM-MKSSY and FIDF

Two further measures sit alongside PMMSY. The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY) is a central sector sub-scheme under PMMSY for the fisheries sector's micro and small enterprises. The Cabinet notice lists proprietary firms, partnership firms and companies registered in India, societies, LLPs, cooperatives, federations, village-level organisations such as self-help groups, fish farmer producer organisations, and startups engaged in fisheries and aquaculture value chains.

A 2025 government note says benefits such as institutional credit and aquaculture insurance are accessible through the National Fisheries Digital Platform. It reports that more than 26 lakh stakeholders, including fishers, micro-enterprises, fish farmer producer organisations and private companies, had registered by August 2025.

The Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) is a lending route, not a subsidy. The National Fisheries Development Board is its nodal agency. Nodal Loaning Entities lend to fishers and entrepreneurs at concessional rates, with an interest subvention and a credit guarantee. Applications are made and tracked on a dedicated online portal run by the Board.

Who can apply

It depends on the component. Hatcheries and nurseries suit entrepreneurs and private firms that can show land and fund their share. Pond, cage and seaweed components suit fish farmers, groups and cooperatives. The innovation component and the Grand Challenge are for fisheries and aquaculture startups. PM-MKSSY is open to the listed micro and small enterprises, and FIDF to fishers and entrepreneurs who need credit for fisheries infrastructure.

Scheme period

The PMMSY guidelines were issued in June 2020 for five years, from 2020-21 to 2024-25. A government note from August 2025 reports that an extension up to 2025-26 was agreed. We could not confirm what applies from 2026-27. Unit costs and component rules in the 2020 guidelines may also have been revised since, so confirm current terms with your State fisheries department before preparing a project report.