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To ease shortfall in fingerlings production, Karnataka has drawn up a five-year plan to attain 30-crore annual production.
“At present, Karnataka is facing 30 per cent shortfall in production. The state with 55 farms spread across the state produce around 20 crore fingerlings,” Mr H.S. Veerappa Gowda, Director, Department of Fisheries, told Business Line .
“The actual demand in the State is around 30 crore. Keeping this in mind, we have initiated a five-year plan to add two to three crore fingerlings production annually,” he added.
As part of the initiative, the Department of Fisheries through budgetary assistance, plans to explore dams and reservoirs in the State for fingerlings production in addition to watershed programmes and natural lakes in the State.
This financial year through State Government assistance of Rs 4.5 crore, the Department of Fisheries is planning to commission two farms.
The two new farms are located at Karanjia Reservoir in Bidar district and Nugu Reservoir in Chamaraja Nagar district.
Seed Farm
“Bidar's Karangia project spread across 10 acres will have annual production capacity of one crore fingerlings. Whereas the Nugu project spread over 25 acres will produce 2.5 crore fingerlings,” said Mr Gowda.
“When the two farms start yielding results, it will cater to the needs of Mysore and Gulbarga regions.”
The State Government, with the assistance from National Co-operative Development Corporation (NCDC) a few years ago, had taken up construction of seed production farm at the Bhadra Reservoir Project.
“The Bhadra project has a capacity to produce one crore fish fingerlings and this took care of the needs in Malnad and the State's few interior districts,” said Mr Gowda.
According to Mr Gowda, the State had a health demand-supply position till 2001. The drought that hit the State between 2001 and 2004 created shortages. The State is now slowly recovering from it.
For a few years, the Department of Fisheries sourced fingerlings from private farms located in Andhra Pradesh. “But in the last two years, we have made concerted efforts to utilise our dams and reservoirs to cater to the regional needs,” said Mr Gowda.
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