Awareness programme on ‘Enclosure culture for enhanced fish production from beels’ organized by ICAR-CIFRI, Regional Centre, Guwahati in collaboration with AFDC Ltd.
ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Regional Centre, Guwahati organized an awareness programme at Ghorajan beel, Amingaon on “‘Enclosure culture for enhanced fish production from beels’ under National Campaign on System Diversification in Aquaculture on 01.09.21 in collaboration with AFDC Ltd., Guwahati. A total of 42 beel fishers, entrepreneurs and members of Trimurti Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Kamrup (Rural), Assam participated in the programme.
Dr. Dipesh Debnath, Senior Scientist, ICAR-CIFRI RC, Guwahati welcomed all the guests and participants to the programme and requested them to actively participate in the technical session. Dr. B.K. Bhattacharjya, Head, ICAR-CIFRI RC, Guwahati briefly explained various measures that are necessary to enhance beel fisheries production by adopting different enhancement options like fish stock enhancement, habitat enhancement and enclosure (pen and cage) culture. He stated that enclosure culture technologies have high potential for increasing per unit area fish production from beels and improve livelihoods of beel fishers. He assured all technical support to AFDC Ltd. and to beel fishers from the Institute. Mrs. Anuradha Adhikari Sarma, MD, AFDC Ltd. and Chief Guest of the programme expressed her thanks to ICAR-CIFRI for conducting the awareness programme with AFDC Ltd. She said that in the recent past, ICAR-CIFRI provided inputs in various beels of Assam in the form of CIFRI HDPE pens, fish seed and feed, which made significant improvement in fish production from those beels. She requested the participants to scientifically manage the beels. Mr. Lohit Deori expressed gratitude to ICAR-CIFRI and AFDC Ltd. for selecting the beel for the awareness programme and requested the organizations to carry out more such programmes in future for the development of beel fisheries in the area. Mr. Kumud Nath, President of Trimurti Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Amingaon explained their initiatives for developing a part of Ghorajan beel and sought technical support from the Institute. Mr. Ripunjon Dutta, Member of the Society discussed about their future plan for improving fisheries through enclosure culture and aqua-tourism in Ghorajan beel. Mr. Birinchi Adhikari, AEE, Lower Assam Zone thanked ICAR-CIFRI for conducting the awareness programme in Ghorajan beel for motivating the participants for scientific beel fisheries management. He also thanked the participants for showing their keen interest in beel fisheries and integrated technologies such as pig-cum-fish and duck-cum-fish farming systems for enhancing income of beel fishers.