Sheat-fish farming, which has been banned since 2000 by the National Green Tribunal for the sake of protection of the ecosystem, has been illegally undertaken in several ponds at Anjulia village under Tangi-Choudwar block and transported to several parts of the country and abroad.
As per reports, one Sarat Kumar Rout, a former police officer of the State, is associated with fish farming for a decade and that too, is availing subsidy from the Fisheries Department.
But recently, a team of the Cuttack District Fisheries Department headed by the Deputy Director visited the field asked Rout to refrain from farming the prohibited sheat-fish, an exotic species i.e. Clarius Geripineus. The team instructed Rout to remove all the biomass of Geripineus from his tanks soon to avail subsidy.
But despite all this, Rout is allegedly running the same practice of production and transportation of sheat-fish. By exerting lobby, he has been able to transport the prohibited sheat-fish to Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, West Bengal, Telengana and even to Bangladesh.
In this regard, an FIR has been lodged at Tangi Police Station by Sasmita Das, president of International Human Rights Council, seeking complete removal of sheat-fish from the tanks of Rout.