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ICAR-CIFRI organized training programme for displaced tribal people of Manipur

Barrackpore, 28^th July, 2022
Manipur state is situated in the eastern-most corner of India and about 41% of population of the state is Scheduled Tribe.

The main tribal group of Manipur is Meitei, Naga and Kuki. Agriculture is the backbone of state's economy contributing 50-60% to the state GDP. Manipur has numbers of water bodies in the form of lakes, wetlands, ponds, water-logged area, rivers/streams, and reservoirs, however only 32.94% of the total potential water areas is so far under fisheries development. More than 95% of the populace of Manipur consumes fish. Despite the state is having production potential but has to import fish from other states of India. Construction of Mapithel Reservoir in Kamjong District Manipur caused displacement of more than 1600 tribal households and the agricultural land of the tribal populace was submerged. The primary occupation of the tribal populace was agriculture, due to submergence of land they compelled to shift to other occupation.

Keeping the background in mind ICAR-CIFRI has initiated reservoir fisheries development programme in selected reservoirs of Manipur to support the livelihoods of the tribal populace through alternative livelihood generation i.e fisheries. Mapithel Reservoir of Kamjong District Manipur is surrounded by six villages and the villagers belonging to Tankhul (Naga) Tribe are now dependent on this reservoir for earning their livelihoods through fisheries. ICAR-CIFRI will initiate Pen culture demonstration programme for insitu raising of fish fingerlings for reservoir fisheries management. ICAR-CIFRI has given two 0.1 ha pen, 2 tonnes CIFRI Cage Grow Feed to the Tribal fishers of the Mapithel reservoir to support their livelihoods under Scheduled Tribe Component.

An on-campus capacity building programme on ‘Reservoir fisheries management for production enhancement’ has been organized at CIFRI, HQ during 22 - 28 July 2022, of selected fishers of the reservoir and the programme was inaugurated by Dr. B.K Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI. In the inaugural programme, Dr. Das emphasized the importance of Pen and Cage culture for reservoir fisheries management in the region. The capacity building programme contained sessions on soil and water chemistry, basics of fish farming, pen culture, cage culture fish feeding, fish health and disease management, etc. including hands on training on fish feed formulation and analysis of basic water quality parameters onsite followed by a feedback session from the trainees at the end of the programme. The programme has been oriented to strengthen the practical skills of the farmers for enhancing the fish production in open waters through on-field exposure visits to Khalsi wetland, and Maithon reservoir.

Field demonstrations was also conducted apart from the classroom sessions. About 97% of the trainees expressed high level of satisfaction from the training programme in the feedback session. Gill nets were also distributed among the trainees in the valedictory session. The programme was conducted under the able guidance of Dr. B. K. Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI, Barrackpore and coordinated by Dr. Aparna Roy (Senior Scientist), Ms. Thangjam Nirupada Chanu (Scientist), and Mr. Mitesh H Ramteke (Scientist), ICAR-CIFRI, Barrackpore.