Status of Aquaculture and Fisheries in Manipur
- Part 1 -
By:- Ajit Kumar Ng *
1. Introduction
Manipur is an Inland territory of Indian Union, a soft State on the north-Eastern border between India and Myanmar. It has a geographical area of 22,327 km2, of which 90% is hilly region, largely characterized by the dense forest and inaccessible terrains.
In Manipur, the source of water is surface water (lakes, rivers, bheels, etc) and sub-surface (underground water). As per land use data, the water bodies of the State occupy about 1.65% of the total land coverage. The usable land is 6.66% of the total land use pattern of Manipur.
Manipur obtains more protein from the fishery products than red meat. Extensive aquaculture has been in practice in the State for the past several years. Although the people are generally vegetarians, eating fish is allowed. No social function or ceremony is held without fish.
|
|
Manipur has 3,360 km length of rivers and canals, 4,000 ha of bheels and wetlands, 5,000 ha of ponds and tanks that produce 18,600 tonnes of fish annually. The average fish yield from FFDA ponds is about 2.4 tonnes/ ha / year.
Inadequate stocking of quality seed in lakes and rivers is the major cause for the huge gap between the potential and the present production level of 18,600 metric tonnes. There is scope for increasing production from lakes, bheels, wetlands and ponds and tanks by the application of new technologies of aqua-farming.
2. Fisheries Prospects
Most appropriate soil/place for fish farming | Clay,loam,Valley districts of Imphal East, Imphal West, Thoubal and Bishnupur. |
Source of fish spawn/fry for rearing | Government Fish Farms and Private fish farms. |
Any benefit scheme of the government for farmers. | Financial assistance in the form of grant may be availed from the FFDAs for development of Fisheries. |
Total Fisheries resources | 56,461 ha |
Water area so far developed | 16,000 ha |
No. of Fish Farmers Development Agencies established | 8 |
No. of Fish Farmers trained | 4,320 |
No. of Fish Farms of the state | 107 |
No. of Govt. Fish Farms | 18 (List appended) |
Water area developed under FFDAs | 2,395.38 ha |
to be continued.....
* Ajit Kumar Ng ( PhD Scholar, Dept. Of Fisheries Microbiology, UNESCO Centre for Marine Biotechnology College of Fisheries, Mangalore) regularly contributes to e-pao.net . He can be contacted at ajit_b2007(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)in
This article was webcasted at e-pao.net on 18th may 2009.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.