Cabinet approval has been granted for the government to cover the full cost of installing Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) on 1,500 fishing vessels across the country in order to help curb illegal activities such as Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, drug trafficking, and other forms of smuggling, while also enabling authorities to accurately identify the location of vessels in the event of technical failures in deep-sea operations or natural disasters, thereby facilitating timely rescue operations.

Cabinet Spokesperson and Minister of Health and Mass Media, Nalinda Jayatissa, announced the decision at the Cabinet media briefing held today (07).

According to the regulations of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), all fishing vessels operating in international waters are required to be continuously monitored through a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). Of the approximately 5,200 multi-day fishing vessels currently registered in Sri Lanka, around 4,200 are already equipped with VMS, while an estimated 1,500 vessels continue to operate without the system.

Minister of Fisheries Ramalingam Chandrasekar has highlighted that about 400 of these vessels, measuring over 34 feet in length, have the capacity to enter international waters at any time and should therefore be brought under continuous monitoring. Even though the remaining 1,100 vessels are technically weak, it is essential to ensure their safety and legality.

Accordingly, based on the proposal submitted by the Minister of Fisheries, the Cabinet has approved making the installation of Vessel Monitoring Systems mandatory for all 1,500 vessels and has decided that the government will bear the entire cost, relieving fishermen of any financial burden.

The government believes that this step will help minimize the various allegations leveled against the country’s fishing industry in international waters and prevent the misuse of fishing vessels by drug and human traffickers.