OTHER DEPARTMENTS

FISHERIES DEPARTMENT

Organisation.

Prior to the Reorganisation of the States in 1956, an Assistant Fishery Development Officer posted at Nagpur was in charge of the eight districts of Vidarbha, and three districts of Chhindwada, Seoni and Betul now in Madhya Pradesh. The Assistant Fishery Development Officer then posted at Bhandara was in charge of fish seed collection scheme, with Statewide jurisdiction. With the Reorganisation of the States, the posts of Assistant Fishery Development Officers were redesignated as Superintendents of Fisheries. The Superintendent of Fisheries, Bhandara, was then immediately placed in charge of all the Fisheries activities in Bhandara district while Superintendent of Fisheries, Nagpur, looked after the work in the remaining seven districts of the Vidarbha region. Both the Superintendents were directly responsible to the Director of Fisheries, Bombay.

In 1958, under the Second Five Year Plan scheme, one more post of Superintendent of Fisheries was created at Chandrapur with jurisdiction over Chandrapur and Yeotmal districts. Another post of a Assistant Director of Fisheries was created at Nagpur to function as regional officer for the Vidarbha region. Thus the Superintendent of Fisheries, Nagpur, has now jurisdiction over Nagpur, Wardha, Amravati, Akola and Buldhana districts.

The Assistant Director of Fisheries is the planning, supervising and coordinating officer for all the activities of the department in the three Fisheries divisions of the Vidarbha region. He represents the department at the meetings of the Divisional Development Council and its subcommittees.

Duties.

The duties of the Superintendents of Fisheries are as follows:—

(i) To carry out survey of new sheets of water to assess their suita- bility 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 supervise the tanks.

(v) To form and supervise fisheries co-operative societies and to devise ways and means to improve the socio-economic conditions of fishermen.

(vi) To investigate applications from fishermen for loan and subsidy from the Government.

(vii) To watch and effect loan recoveries and credit the money into the treasury.

(viii) To associate and encourage fishermen to take advantage of different schemes of the department.

(ix) To collect statistics of fish and other data pertaining to fisheries and fishermen of the district.

(x) To give technical guidance to the deep tank fishing operations conducted by societies.

(xi) To supervise the working of ice and cold storage plant.

(xii) To supervise in general the work of development of fisheries in the respective areas under his jurisdiction.

To undertake these developmental activities in the Wardha district, an Assistant Superintendent of Fisheries has been appointed. He is assisted by the necessary ministerial staff.

Fisheries Co-operatives.

Improvement of socio-economic condition of fishermen has been one of the main objectives of the Fisheries department. Attention is focussed on the formation of fisheries co-operatives. In the socio-economic field, the fishermen in the district have been organised to form four co-operative societies with a total membership of 280 and a share capital of about Rs. 18,000. Financial assistance is granted to these societies in the form of subsidy on purchase of fishery requisites, loan and subsidy for construction of rearing and nursery tanks as also desilting and renovating tanks. Similarly reduction in price of imported carp fry so as to increase the stocking intensity of the tanks for increasing production of fish is yet another measure adopted by the department.

Fishing rights.

Fishing rights in rivers are not leased out in the district. Government tanks belong to Revenue, Irrigation and Forest departments. Some tanks are owned by the local bodies like municipalities, gram panchayats, etc. Generally, the tank is auctioned in favour of the highest bidder, preference being given to the fisheries co-operative societies. Moreover, the tanks are not given on long term lease to the fish farmers.

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