Chief Secretary AP Pahdhi has asked concerned officials to expedite the process for establishment of the proposed National Freshwater Fish Brood Bank at Kaushalyagang on the city outskirts and complete the same at the earliest.
Padhi said this while reviewing the progress of the establishment of project recently. Water Resources Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena and Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Secretary Bishnupada Sethi participated in the discussion.
The proposed brood bank is the first of its kind in the country, which was conceived in 2012-13 to address quality brood stock development, production, distribution of breeder seeds to the accredited hatcheries with technical support from CIFA, Bhubaneswar and NBFGR, lucknow, said Sethi in a power point presentation.
Sethi said the State Government has already given 119 acres of land to the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), Hyderabad at the Kausalyaganga fish farm for the purpose. He intimated that as per earlier decision, the renovation and realignment of ponds was entrusted to Water Resources Department, which in turn had entrusted the job to the Odisha Construction Corporation (OCC).
The FARD Secretary also informed that while the first-phase of renovation involved 40 acres of land having 35 ponds with an estimated cost of `2.15 crore, the OCC has so far handed over only six renovated ponds to the NFDB, and the NFDB has renovated one pond on its own.
The renovation work of 12 ponds undertaken by OCC has been delayed.
Chief Secretary took a very serious note of the matter and said such inordinate delay in execution of a project of national importance is unacceptable.
Water Resources Secretary Jena suggested for use of geo-synthetic netting for establishment of dykes.
However, it was decided that instead of OCC, the Fishery Engineering Division would undertake the work with a time-bound manner.
The division would take up renovation of all 22 ponds to be handed over as and where basis from the OCC and six other ponds belonging to the first phase. The CPWD Chief Engineer agreed to provide technical guidance to the division.
It was decided that all the ponds would be completed before the onset of monsoon for making those ready for fish culture.