As a part of its move to augment fish production in the state, the fisheries department has released fingerlings of around 95 units in the lake at Eco Park in Rajarhat. State Fisheries Minister Chandranath Sinha had released these units of fingerlings in the lake so that they could thrive in the large water body. It was learnt that one unit consists of 1,000 fingerlings and 5 gram of lime.
According to an official of the state fisheries department fingerlings will grow in the large water body without any assistance. It may be mentioned that after the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government came to power in 2011, the fisheries department had taken up several initiatives to augment fish production and the people were encouraged to take part in pisciculture.
Fish farming in West Bengal is a big industry now, employing thousands of people. Chief Minister Banerjee has been very proactive in encouraging commercial fish farming. The government has
taken many steps, both to encourage fish farming, and address its allied issues, and to provide fish cultivators with all forms of support. The government has provided 8,741.94 tonne of nutritionally balanced floating feed for free to 13,000 fish farmers for the first time in West Bengal, with a financial involvement of Rs 23 crore.
The West Bengal government has also set up a hilsa preservation and research centre at Sultanpur in Burdwan. It has also provided temperature-controlled mobile vans and cycle-mounted ice boxes for selling fish; these activities are regulated by fishermen’s cooperatives, and have also ensured a steady income for the cooperatives.
The State government has also arranged for training fishermen on issues related to fish conservation, and conservation of lakes and wetlands.
Lakes larger than five cottah have been identified for conservation. The fisheries department will set up a laboratory on a 10 acre of land at Chakgeria in South 24 Parganas. The laboratory will help find out causes of various diseases that affect fish production.
Before the fishermen could understand anything, the disease spread, affecting prawn cultivation badly and they lost crore of rupees. The projects were funded by the World Bank. State fisheries department is also planning to use the most advanced satellite images to assess the condition of various water bodies across the state.
After going through the satellite images, the senior officials of the department sitting at their offices will get to know about quality of water in each waterbody across the state.