OTHER DEPARTMENTS

FISHERIES DEPARTMENT

Organisation.-Before 1956, fisheries activities in the eight districts of the Vidarhha region and the three districts of Chhind-vvara, Seoni and Betul, now in Madhya Pradesh, were looked after by an Assistant Fisheries Development Officer posted at Nagpur, while the Assistant Fisheries Development Officer with headquarters at Bhandara was in charge of fish seed collection scheme with Statewide jurisdiction. The post of Assistant Fisheries Development Officer was redesignated as the Superintendent of Fisheries with the re-organisation of States in 1956. Subsequently, the Superintendent of Fisheries, Bhandara, was placed in charge of the fisheries activities in Bhandara district while the Superintendent of Fisheries, Nagpur, supervised the work in the remaining seven districts of Vidarhha region. Both the Superintendents were responsible directly to the Director of Fisheries, Bombay.

With the addition of one more post of Superintendent under the Second Five Year Plan in 1958, with headquarters at Chandra-pur, the work in Chandrapur and Yeotmal districts was transferred to him. The post of Assistant Director of Fisheries was created with headquarters at Nagpur as a regional head for Vidarbha region. With this, the Superintendent of Fisheries, Nagpur, has control over Buldhana district along with the districts of Nagpur, Wardha, Akola and Amravati.

The Assistant Director of Fisheries is the planning, supervising and co-ordinating officer for all the activities of the department in the three fisheries divisions of Vidarbha region.

Duties.-The duties of the Superintendent of Fisheries are as follows: -

(i) to carry out survey of new sheets of water to assess their suitability for pisciculture,

(ii) to stock tanks and ponds with suitable varieties of fish every year,

(iii) to construct nurseries and to nurture fry in them,

(iv) to form and supervise all the fisheries co-operative societies and to devise ways and means to improve the socio-economic conditions of fishermen,

(v) to investigate applications from fishermen for loan and subsidy from Government,

(vi) to effect loan recoveries and credit the money into the treasury,

(vii) to associate and encourage fishermen to take advantage of different schemes of the department,

(viii) to collect statistics of fish and other data pertaining to fisheries and fishermen in the district,

(ix) to give technical guidance to deep tank fishing operations conducted by the societies,

(x) to supervise the working of ice and cold storage plant and

(xi) to supervise in general the work of development of fisheries in areas under his jurisdiction.

Developmental Activities.-With a view to increasing the produc-tion of fish within the district and improving the socio-economic condition of the fishermen, the Department of Fisheries established an office in 1962 for the district, with one Fisheries Assistant in charge, who works under the Superintendent of Fisheries, Akola.

Fisheries Co-operatives.- In the socio-economic field, efforts are made to bring the Fishermen in the district under the co-operative fold, so as to extend the benefits of different schemes of develop-ment and financial assistance to the fish trade. There are at pre-sent 5 fishermen's co-operative societies in the district, with a total membership of 105 and a total share capital of Rs. 5,650.

Financial assistance is granted by way of subsidy on the purchase of fishery requisites such as nylon and cotton twine. The co-operative societies and private fish-culturists get rebate on the procurement of the carp fry. Financial assistance is also granted by way of loan and subsidy for construction of rearing and nursery tanks, desilting and renovating tanks and screening of the outlets. All measures eventually undertaken have increased production of fish and socio-economic welfare of the fishermen in the district.

Progress of Work.-As the water resources of the district were lacking in the availability of quick growing varieties such as Catla, Rohu and Mrigal, the tanks in the district are being surveyed with a view to bringing about as much area of water surface as possible, under the culture of these three types of fishes. Under Five Year Plan schemes quick growing Bengal Carps are stocked annually in the perennial water tanks for propagation of pisciculture. The varieties stocked are Catla, Rohu and Mrigal. In the municipal tanks at Buldhana and Khamgaon, about 1.60 lakhs of fry was stocked during the Second Five Year Plan period. During the first two years of the Third Plan period the quantity stocked amounted to 1.61 lakhs alone. Intensification of stocking of fry or fish seed of these fishes, is being undertaken every year. Attempts are also being made to explore the production of fish-seed within the district, by undertaking the artificial method of breeding these fishes.

The total area of water that has been brought under pisciculture until 1969 was 1,570 hectares. The tanks which are being stocked with fry of major carps by the department are Sangam tank (2.4 hectares), Yarkhed tank (43 hectares) and Nalganga reservoir (1100 hectares). Technical assistance and requisite facilities are also extended for undertaking pisciculture in tanks belonging to various gram-panchayats, municipal committees and interested pisciculturists.

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