By Mayukh Goswami

Mangaldai  : “Darrang is such a district which has been gifted with so many natural resources including the very fertile land and innumerous water bodies bringing a strong potentiality of  agriculture and fish production with a little vision and effort . I observe that scientific pisciculture in our roadside  tanks and abandoned wet lands may bring a sea change in our economy . In fact I believe that with little of our effort supported by new technology each and every such water bodies could be transformed like an ATM booth from where we may withdraw cash at our will.” observed Ashok Kr Barman , Deputy Commissioner , Darrang . He was addressing a group of thirty five selected progressive fish farmers of the district participating in a workshop on scientific fish production organized by scribes’ body Mangaldai Media Circle in collaboration with the District Administration and District Fishery Department on Saturday at Dighirpar Fish Production Centre under the Darrang Fishery Department .

Appealing the educated youths to stop running after government jobs and come forward to enjoy unlimited honest earnings through fish production , Deputy Commissioner said , “ An abandoned tank with an area of  one or two bighas of land in our locality means just like lying rupees around twenty lakhs beside us but we are unable to make it our own .”

Similarly Tapan Das ,  District Fishery Development Officer , Darrang while giving a brief account of the present fish production scenario underlined the necessity of commercial and fish production to meet the growing demand of local fish in the district with rich potentiality in the small and big tanks numbering around twenty nine thousand . “ There are about 29,000 small and big tanks across the district and most of the water bodies are left unexplored for fish production . The district has recorded fish production of around 9,800 MT per annum which is still far below the demand of 11,500 MT of fish of the district .”, Das added.

Meanwhile participating in the technical session as the resource persons, senior Fishery Development officers of the State Fishery Department  Jyotish Das and Debnath Medok explained in detail about various categories of fisheries like nursery , rearing , stocking etc and how to prepare them for scientific fish culture . They discussed on the demand of pawn culture for new and small fish growers rather going for a bigger but incomplete project . They stressed the need of classification of fish growers as small , medium and big to work as a chain supporting one another to meet the ultimate market demand of imported fish with quality and size . The resource persons also highlighted mono-culture of some specific fish species like Cat fish, Kuchia, Chanda , Tilapiya etc which can earn better profit return that too  in quick time and about integrated fish farming along with horticulture , duck farming and piggery etc  . The workshop conducted by adviser of Mangaldai Media Circle , Bhargab Kr Das also witnessed experience sharing by two progressive fish farmers from Gorgori village of the district namely Mahendra Barua and Nayan Mani Saikia where they attributed their success to the constant motivation from DC, Darrang Barman and technical support of the Fishery Department , UCo RSETI , Mangaldai and KVK , Darrang .