CIFRI Awards
ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, Kolkata conferred with Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award-2020 under Large Institute Category. The Award was and conferred by Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welafare on the occasion of 93rd ICAR Foundation Day and Award Ceremony on 16 July 2021. Institute received Rs. 5 Lakh cash award with citation.
Apart from Sardar patel outstanding institution Award, Dr. Basanta Kumar Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI, conferred with Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award for Outstanding Research in Agricultural Sciences under Animal & Fisheries Sciences Category. The award carries cash reward of Rs. 2.5 lakhs and citation.
The institute magazine “Nilanjali” received Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Protsahan Purashkar for C regions.
The Institute has accomplished significant scientific and technological progresses towards generating knowledge base for ensuring sustainability of inland open water ecology, aquatic biodiversity, fisheries, nutritional and livelihood securities. Institute is serving the Inland open water sector which includes rivers and canals (195210 km), flood plain wetlands (5 lakhs ha), reservoirs (3.51 million ha), estuaries (0.029 m. ha) etc.and contributes 20% of inland fish production and 15% of India’s fish production. The Institute is addressing the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) # 1, 2, 5, 8, 13, 14 through different programmes towards humanity and national development.
Through successful adoption of CIFRI technology on the reservoir production has increased substantially to 100000, 20000 and 15000 metric tons from small, medium and large reservoirs, respectively totaling 1.35 lakh metric tons. Research, demonstration, transfer of technology and capacity building enabled the cage culture technology to be adopted in 22 states of India which has also attracted private entrepreneurs. High fish production 3000/kg/cage was achieved from cage culture.
The Institute research has contributed immensely towards higher employment opportunities and income generation to the fishers. Employment of the fishermen has moved upwards from 30 mandays to 150 mandays/fisherman household/year through adoption of culture based fisheries in reservoirs and wetlands. Additional employment of 90 mandays/pen has been generated through pen culture. Pen culture in Assam has increased 50% fish production of the floodplain wetlands, enhancing the income and livelihood of the farming community. ICAR-CIFRI has developed e-Atlases of water bodies above 0.5 ha of 19 States under Central Sector Scheme (CSS). These e-Atlases have been provided to the policy planners of States for management of fisheries in waterbodies.
The Institute has prepared and published roadmaps for inland open water fisheries development in consultation with 14 State Departments, for West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Mizoram, Sikkim, Telangana and Andaman and Nicobar Islands for ushering in Second Blue Revolution.
During 2015-2020, the Institute has organized 165 vocational training programmes on different aspects of inland fisheries management and development imparting training to 5215 fish farmers, officials and students (4410 male and 805 female participants) of Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Keral, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura.
During Covid-19 pandemic, the institute has developed advisories for fishers of Rivers, estuaries, channels & creeks and for fishers/Fisherman cooperative societies of Reservoir and wetlands in English, hindi and 7 regional languages. Thes advisories were highly appreciated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome of UN and recommended for Asian region.
