Karnataka - Bellary   

Fish breeding becomes lucrative vocation in Bellary district

BELLARY: Fish breeding in Bellary district appears to be catching up with more and more farmers willing to take it up as an alternative means of their vocation.

There has been a good scope for set up fish farms in the district, especially in Bellary, Hospet and Sirguppa taluks which had good irrigation facilities. About 20,000 hectares of land in the command area in these three taluks had either turned saline or waterlogged making it unfit for cultivation. The subsidy schemes, announced by the Union and State governments, had come as an encouragement too.

To make best use of the wasteland in the command area and to fully utilise the water resources, the Department of Fisheries, through the Fish Farmers Development Agency (FFDA) started encouraging farmers to go for fish farming in wasteland.

As an incentive, farmers were given 20 per cent of the unit cost as subsidy with a ceiling of up to five hectares. (Farmers going in for fish farming on one hectare of land were eligible to get around Rs. 40,000 subsidy with the unit cost being Rs. 2 lakh and the subsidy ceiling was limited to five hectares only).

To promote inland fisheries, the Union Government and the State Government used to release funds, through Fish Farmers’ Development Agency (FFDA) formed at the initiative of the Union Government, for giving subsidy in the ratio of 75:25 respectively, to encourage more farmers to take up fish farming.

The Centre, through the National Fisheries Development Board, formed on the lines of National Dairy Development Board NDDB, had come out with another scheme of extending subsidy to the tune of Rs. 30,000 a hectare, without the upper limit, for comprehensive development of inland fisheries.

After making the initial investment of construction of a pond, (for which bank loans and subsidy are available), the recurring expenditure for the farmer going in for fish farming in about one acre of land, would not exceed around Rs. 40,000 a year.

In turn, after 10 months, he would get around three tonnes of fish an acre (7.5 tonnes a hectare) which is sold at around Rs. 30 a kg, and gets a good revenue of about Rs. 50,000 an acre annually.

As of now, 350 hectares of land in the command area had been converted into fish ponds and many more farmers were willing to follow suit.

About 1,500 tonnes of fish was produced in the farmers’ pond during the previous year and was likely to go up this year, Ram Mohan Reddy, Senior Assistant Director of Fisheries, told The Hindu.

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Fish breeding becomes lucrative vocation in Bellary district

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