State Fisheries minister Biplab Roy Chowdhury said on Monday that Bengal is poised to become number one in the country in fish production by this year. The minister claimed that Bengal is presently in the second position in terms of production. “The daily demand of fish in the state is 5846 metric tonne (MT) while the state produces 6033 MT of fish daily. We send 1.26 lakh MT of fishes to other states annually and import 1.12 lakh MT annually,” the minister said during the question answer session in the Assembly.
Bengal imports fish from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Punjab while exporting to Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The state has ramp up production by 50 per cent in the last 12 years, with production reaching 22.02 lakh MT in 2023-24. The target is to achieve 23.3 lakh MT by 2024-25.
The minister said that in fish seed production, the state has ranked number one. The department has started providing training in fish cultivation in every block and has already trained over 21284 fishermen. The target is 48,000 for the next financial year. The minister said that his department is setting up 35 fish vending kiosks in Kolkata and its adjacent areas.
The scheme ‘Sufal Bangla Matysa (Fish)’ will see the department selling live fishes in association with the Sufal Bangla initiative of the Agricultural Marketing department. The Sufal Bangla Matsya is aimed at offering fresh fish at a reasonable rate to the people of the state. The target is to set up 100 such fish vending kiosks.