Baleswar MP and former Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi inaugurated the much-hyped deep water cage aquaculture projects on Sunday in the sea near Bahabalpur fishing centre. Sarangi inaugurated five projects after travelling to the place deep in the sea by trawler. "This is a pilot project funded fully by the Central Government.
In the initial phase, 30 projects will be undertaken with an estimated budget of Rs 2.56 crore. The cage aquaculture has proved very successful which fetches more revenue. This would encourage the promising fish farmers to have better yield in the quantity and quality fronts also," said Sarangi. For each project, three beneficiaries have been trained in Vishakhapatnam about the culture. Initially, 30 projects would avail provision for training, infrastructure support, feed etc for the beneficiaries, he added.
After seeing yield of these projects after 6 months, other farmers can take up the culture. For the cage culture, banks will provide finance and farmers would be given subsidy of 40 per cent and 60 per cent for the women and reserved categories and the department will provide training, said Sarangi.
Notably, Baleswar has a huge potential for growth of marine fish productions and cage culture is another avenue for the farmers.
According to CMFRI member Dr Biswajit Das, through the cage culture method, a farmer can have three crops in a year. The projects are also in the process in AP, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In the fresh water ponds or tanks, for fish farming alteration of water and oxygen is required, but here under the deep water cage culture, those things are not required, said scientists Dr Subhodeep Ghosh and Dr Gyana Ranjan Das.