The Fisheries department is reaching out to the grassroots level across the state through interactions with the newly-elected Matsya Karmadakshya (fisheries supervisor) in every district to push for an increase of fish production and employment generation in the sector.
“Our aim is to deliver the message to every supervisor, right up to the block level, that they should have a fair understanding of their responsibility and ensure that the fish farmers derive benefits of all the existing schemes of the department,” state Fisheries minister Biplab Roy Chowdhury said at a workshop in the administrative building of South 24-Parganas district at Alipore on Tuesday.
The department will hold similar workshops in districts associated with pisciculture where higher officials of the department will directly interact with the rural level officials and clear roadblocks for the augmentation of fish production.
The role of Karmadakshya involves allotment of block-wise quota for beneficiaries’ selection under different developmental schemes; selection of beneficiaries of different developmental schemes as and when necessary; ensuring smooth implementation of all schemes in the district; facilitating the process of issuance of Fishermen Registration Card (FRC) to all fish farmers and vendors in the district; overseeing the process of credit linkage to be provided to the fish farmers and to help the family members/nominees of deceased fish farmers to avail of the benefit under Matsyajeebi Bandhu (Death Benefit) Scheme, 2023.
Avanindra Singh, secretary of the department, stressed on utilising the unused water bodies. There are 18.75 lakh water bodies in the state which is the highest in the country. Andhra Pradesh has one-third of the water bodies compared to Bengal but their production is three times of Bengal.
“We have to exploit the water bodies in an effective manner which will provide employment to the unemployed in the rural areas and at the same time increase the income level of the existing fishermen,” Singh added. In South 24-Parganas, a total of 66996 hectares area is available for pisciculture with the total number of fishermen being 4.98 lakhs. The total number of FRC issued in the district is 2.30 lakh.