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Livelihood improvement of Five hundred small and marginal SC fish farmers of Kultali

21^st May, 2022
India’s known Eco-wonder Sundarban is continuously battling with the tropical cyclones along with the huge tidal surges. The distressed people for whom fisheries is the main source of livelihood are at immense pressure for their sustenance. To remove them from these troubled situations, ICAR-CIFRI is tirelessly extending its support to the rural fish farmers by providing various technological inputs for rejuvenating their livelihood under the SCSP /TSP development programmes.

As a part of these developmental activities, a three days long live demonstration / handholding support along with a mass awareness programme was organized at Kultali, South 24 Pargans during 19th to 21st May 2022 by ICAR-CIFRI under the guidance of Dr. B. K. Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI. On day 1, the technical team visited Uttarmokamberia and Choradakat Village and discussed with 17 nos of farmers and tested the pond water quality and fish samples. They had a comprehensive interaction with them about their culture practices, productions and constrains and provided scientific advisory. Besides, at Uttarmokamberia village, the team has discussed with 12 ornamental beneficiaries and hand holding supports were provided for ornamental fish rearing. For their strategic development of marketing of ornamental fishes, they were linked to the ornamental fish shops of nearby Canning town.

On the second day (20th May, 2022) a mass awareness camp was organized at Kultoli, South 24 Parganas in collaboration with Kultali Milan Tirtha Society. In this program, about 500 fish farmers belonging to 32 hamlets of 14 GPs of two CD Blocks (Gosaba & Basanti) participated. Dr. B. K. Das, Director of ICAR-CIFRI has inaugurated the mass awareness programme and in his speech he guided the farmers to increase their income as well as livelihoods through scientific fish farming in derelict waterbodies, backyard ponds and through ornamental fish culture. The framers interacted with the Director, ICAR-CIFRI and cleared their doubts on fish farming and fish health management. Dr. Das has advised the fish farmers to save some amount of money from the profit of fish farming, so the same will be utilized in the next year as the investment.

He has also advised the women ornamental fishers of Kultali cluster to focus on the market demand, breeding of ornamental fishes, marketing of ornamental fish and accessories of aquarium as the part of entrepreneurship. Sri Lokaman Molla of Kultali Milon Tirtha Society applauded the ICAR-CIFRI intervention, which is unique in the Sunderban area covering a large scale of beneficiaries in the domain of fish culture rendering a great help to uplift their livelihoods. Dr. P. K. Parida, Nodal officer, SCSP of the Institute also gave a presentation on scientific fish farming and summarized how the intervention will benefit the individual fisher involved in these massive awareness programmes. During this programme a book on ornamental fish keeping along with ornamental fish feed were distributed to the women ornamental fishers.

On the last day i.e 21st May 2022 CIFRI team has interacted with the fish farmers (20 nos) of Pochapara and Jharkhali villages and 12 ornamental fishers of Sonakhali villages. During these three days long program farmers have shown overwhelming responses for the interventions carried out by CIFRI and also desires to upgrade their skill through capacity building programs. Aiming, towards the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s dream for “Doubling Farmers Income” the works at Kultali were initiated in last November and a target was set to generate approx. Rs. 2.0 crores with an investment of Rs. 32 lakhs in a cluster of 500 fishers of this area during one year. It has been observed that, with all these interventions of ICAR-CIFRI, farmers are able to generate nearly 70 Lakhs (almost double income) within 6 months.
The programme was coordinated and managed following the COVID protocol and supported by Mr. Sujit Chowdhury, Dr. A. Saha, and Dr. Shreya Bhattacharya of ICAR-CIFRI and staffs of Milon Tirtha Society.