CIFRI Awards
A skill development programme (SDP) on ‘Beel fisheries management for livelihood improvement’ was organized by ICAR-CIFRI Regional Centre, Guwahati during Aug. 28-29, 2019. The training programme was attended by 50 fishers (including 10 women) nominated by the AFDC Ltd. (37), Dept. of Fisheries, Govt. of Assam (10 no.) and Dept. of Fisheries, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh (3 no.). Important aspects of beel fisheries viz. need for conservation and sustainable utilization of beels, enclosure culture technologies (i.e., pen and cage culture) for beel fisheries enhancement, fish feed and nutrition, fish health management, soil and water quality management, fisheries legislations, statistics and record keeping in beel fisheries, selective breeding of ornamental fishes etc. were discussed during the SDP. A field visit to cage culture (Thekeraguri beel, Morigaon) and pen culture (47-Morakolong beel, Morigaon) facilities was also conducted on 28/08/19 for practical exposure to CIFRI technologies.
The valedictory session was graced by Shri N.C. Basumatary, ACS, Managing Director, Assam Fisheries Development Corporation Ltd. (AFDC Ltd.) and Shri P.K. Hazarika, OSD, AFDC Ltd. Dr. D. Debnath, Sr. Scientist, welcomed the dignitaries, Scientists, Technical staff, Research scholars of ICAR-CIFRI RC, Guwahati and participants. Shri P.K. Hazarika encouraged the trained fishers to take responsibility of spreading scientific knowledge for increasing fish production from beels, thus improving nutritional security of the people through consumption of fish. He also emphasized that community fishing has been a socio-cultural tradition of the fishers of Assam, but the time has come to practice that with conservation and sustainable utilization in mind, otherwise future generations may not get fish in beels. Shri N. C. Basumatary pointed out that fisheries is a very unique enterprise, because unlike other agricultural crops, this can be practiced throughout the year. However, beel fisheries has been facing serious problems of siltation, macrophyte infestation, unauthorized encroachment and paddy cultivation near beel margins. AFDC proposes to deal with these problems, he mentioned. Dr. B. K. Bhattacharjya, Head of Centre, ICAR-CIFRI RC, Guwahati mentioned that Government of India has been encouraging skill development in various sectors including fisheries, and the Institute has been undertaking this job in beel fisheries. While appreciating the steps taken by the AFDC Ltd., Guwahati for conservation of beel fisheries, he suggested utilizing the dried-up marginal areas of beels to create nursery ponds and also to create deep pools in certain beels for conservation of indigenous fishes.
Shri A.K. Yadav, Scientist & Co-convenor of the SDP thanked the honored guests and participants. He also thanked the Director of ICAR-CIFRI, Dr. B.K. Das, other Scientists (Dr. S. Yengkokpam, Dr. P. Das, Mrs Niti Sharma), Technical staff (Shri B.C. Ray and A. Kakati), Administrative staff (Shri R.K. Roy) and Research scholars (Dorendro, Victor and Sanjit) of the Centre for all-out effort in making the programme a successful one. The programme was conducted by Dr. Sona Yengkokpam, Sr. Scientist, ICAR-CIFRI Regional Centre, Guwahati.
Facilities
Others
External links
