ICAR-CIFE Agri-Business Incubation (ABI) Centre

Know what this is

• ABI is the incubation centre of a government fisheries institute. It serves fisheries and allied-sector ideas: aquaculture, fish processing, feed, ornamental fish, and related products and tools.
• It publishes no application form, no eligibility test and no intake dates. Expect to start with a conversation.

How to approach it

• Write to abicife@cife.edu.in, or call +91-22-26361446, and address it to the Officer-in-Charge, ABI.
• Say in a few lines what you want to build, which of the listed specialisations it falls under, and whether you are an individual, a student, a group or a registered company.
• Ask directly about terms: whether registration is needed, what it costs, and whether the centre takes any stake. The page states none of these.

Match your idea to the facilities

• The centre lists specialisations with a location for each, such as biofloc, recirculating aquaculture systems, aquaponics, spirulina, fish value-added products and fish by-products at Mumbai, and shrimp and fish culture at the regional centres.
• If your work needs ponds or field culture, ask which regional centre would host it.
• Say which facility you need and for how long, since incubatees use the institute's facilities rather than a separate ABI building.

Related routes

• CEFED, run from the same office, also supports fisheries startups and runs weekly training sessions. Write to cefed@cife.edu.in.
• Technologies developed at the institute are licensed through Agrinnovate India Ltd.; the ABI page links to its Express your Interest page.

The Agri Business Incubation (ABI) Centre at ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (ICAR-CIFE), Mumbai, helps aspiring entrepreneurs in fisheries and allied sectors turn ideas into working businesses. It was set up in January 2016 as an ICAR-sanctioned project under the National Agricultural Innovation Fund (NAIF) scheme, and it works from the institute's campus at Versova, Andheri (West), Mumbai. It is a unit of a government institute rather than a separate company, and it is led by an Officer-in-Charge who is a scientist at the institute.

Who it is for

The centre says it has supported individual incubatees, student entrepreneurs, self-help groups (SHGs), farmer producer organisations and startup ventures in the fisheries sector. The page does not set an eligibility test, an incorporation requirement or a closing date. There is no published application form or guidelines document, and no dated intake. The one route it names is to contact the Officer-in-Charge, ABI, by email or by the office number. Founders who do not yet have a registered company are clearly in scope, since individuals and students are listed among its incubatees.

What incubation involves

Registered incubatees are allowed to use the institute's facilities and are given hand-holding until they can handle a task or prepare a product on their own. The centre says it provides business planning and enterprise development guidance, skill development and capacity building, technology transfer and prototype testing, and industry linkages and market facilitation.

In practice the page lists these supports for startups. Incubatees are exposed to technologies developed at the institute and are supported in small-scale production and marketing. ABI explains how registration, licensing and certification work, and it explains the Government of India schemes open to startups. It also arranges meetings with financial support institutions and with marketing agencies and prospective buyers of their products. The stated aims include promoting fisheries and aquaculture business using the institute's own knowledge and technologies, guiding small-scale entrepreneurs until they are self-rooted, and commercialising technologies the institute has developed.

Facilities and specialisations

ABI lists the specialisations where it can host incubatees, with the place and the kind of facility for each. At Mumbai these include fish skin leather and organic manure from fish waste, both offered as technology know-how, and gender analysis and human capital valuation, offered as copyrighted tools. Wet and dry laboratories cover biofloc, recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), aquaponics, fish feed and ornamental fish culture. Spirulina culture has a wet laboratory and an algal culture laboratory. The post-harvest section covers fish value-added products and fish by-products, with pre-processing and processing space, a modular kitchen and a cold room.

Other specialisations sit at the institute's regional centres: pearl culture and ornamental fish culture at Salt Lake, Kolkata; shrimp culture at Kakinada; fish culture at Powarkheda in Madhya Pradesh; and inland saline water shrimp aquaculture at Rohtak in Haryana, all in fields or culture ponds. These are the institute's facilities that incubatees may use. They are not separate ABI assets.

Scale

On its own page the centre reports 252 registered incubatees. It breaks them down as 93 individual incubatees, 32 student incubatees, 92 women incubatees through SHG incubation and 34 incubatees through startup or business venture incubation. It also reports one farmer producer organisation with 1000 members and 32 startup or business ventures incubated. The four groups add up to 251, not 252, and the page does not date these counts, so treat them as the centre's own approximate figures.

CEFED, a sister centre

The same office also coordinates the Centre of Excellence in Fisheries Entrepreneurship Development (CEFED), established at ICAR-CIFE in May 2025 with financial support from the National Fisheries Development Board under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY). CEFED offers startup mentoring, access to laboratories and institutional facilities, skill training, business planning, branding and market linkages, prototype testing and small-scale production, and weekly training sessions by expert speakers. Its page also gives no application form or dates.

Technologies you can license

The institute's technologies, such as inland saline water shrimp farming, biofloc starter cultures and fish feed supplements, are assigned to Agrinnovate India Ltd. in New Delhi for commercialisation. The ABI page has an Express your Interest link to Agrinnovate for founders who want to license them.

Who runs it

The Officer-in-Charge is Dr. S. P. Shukla, a Principal Scientist at ICAR-CIFE, who also coordinates CEFED. Two scientists are named as Co-PIs and three more as members of the ABI team. The institute's Director is listed on the management table.

Location

ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Panch Marg, Off. Yari Road, Versova, Andheri (West), Mumbai 400 061. The centre's office number is +91-22-26361446.