Tripura Comes Up With Unique Scheme to Boost Fish Production

The Tripura government has devised a unique scheme to boost the state's overall fish output by exploiting government-owned water bodies, which is a first.

Mevar Kumar Jamatia, Tripura's Fishery Minister, said the decision was made shortly after the state was named the best-performing state in the fisheries industry among the eleven hilly states." The state was awarded a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh for its commendable job in the fishery sector," the minister said, The award was presented by the National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad on the occasion of World Fisheries Day observed on November 21, Sharing details of the new policy the minister said, lease Policy for government-owned water bodies of Tripura-2021 has been formulated for sustainable use of all the water bodies available in the govt land for scientific pisciculture.

"At present, there are 1,502 water bodies spread in a total area of 645.54 hectares. The whole area belongs to the government of Tripura. The water bodies are under the control of different departments like education, rural development, forest, and tourism and thus mostly remain underutilized as far as fish production is concerned," he also added.

The fisheries department attempted to provide some regularity in the administration of water bodies as well as their proper usage for fish production through this strategy, according to the minister. Tripura consumes 25 kg of fish per person per year, which is the second-highest in the country after the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to the minister. According to Jamatia, owing to production and consumption trends, there will be a 23 percent fish shortfall between 2019 and 2020. He also added that the scarcity was alleviated by importing fish from Bangladesh and other regions of the country.

"To become self-reliant in this front too, we have introduced modern fish culture practices like Bio-floc and Pisciculture. Hopefully, in the next two years, we shall be able to produce fish as per our requirement," he said.

The minister went on to say that leasing these water resources will result in greater water resource usage, increased fish production, bridging the demand-supply gap, income generation, job creation, increased contribution to the GSDP, and people's food and nutritional security.