Union Secretary of Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Gokul Chandra Pati has said that the country’s first fish brood bank would come up on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in an area of 20 acres of land at a cost of Rs 8 crore ad would be fully functional by June next year.
“The proposed brood stock bank is a centre where different parent line fish will be maintained till brood stage and bred artificially to produce good quality seeds free from inbreeding,” Pati said.Officials said the project is expected to minimise the depression witnessed presently owing to breeding of closely related individual brood fish resulting in production of fish seeds with relatively lower growth rate and lesser disease resistance.
Presently, seed sourcing is being done in multiple ways, including imports. The brood bank would reduce the dependence on import of freshwater fish and encourage culture of new varieties of fish.Now, the bank has only two varieties of brood fish, Amur Crap and Jayanti Rohu. The number would be increased to 30 once it is fully functional, next year, said Pati.
With the successful implementation of the project, good quality fish seeds would be produced and fish production would be multiplied manifold, said the Union Secretary.He added that the Union Government, which unveiled the new National livestock Policy (NlP), has asked the State Governments to review their existing policy framework and make modifications on the lines of the national plan.
He stated that now there is a thrust on indigenous breeding as cross breeding is more helpful for the progressive farmers of irrigated areas. Accordingly, the State Governments would have to change their breeding policy to promote indigenous breeds like Gir, Red Sindhi, etc., said Pati, who is on a tour to the State.
He emphasised that the NlP’s thrust is on scientific approach towards feeding the livestock.Similarly, the scientific method in giving mineral mixture to the cows and buffalos would help farmers and the State Governments would have to tune their policies in this regard, he said.He cited the example of Niali in Cuttack district, where there is plenty of iron mineral available which would not help cows.
Pati stressed on a proper analysis of mineral mixture by the State Government agencies in order to boost animal resources development.