Pengba gets new lease of life
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 24: Closely related with the history of the land and highly relished by the local people, Pengba variety of fish which was on the verge of totally disappearing from Manipur a few years back is now getting a fresh lease of life.

The endangered Pengba reared by Soibam Dhanabir on display

The sole credit for re-generating this endangered indigenous fish species goes to Soibam Dhanabir of Ningombam for he succeeded where the State Government had failed.

Earlier the State Government made several efforts to regenerate the fish species but failed.

Speaking on Pengba Day celebration at Ningombam today, Soibam Dhanabir said that in addition to its superior taste, Pengba contains Omega-3 fatty acid which is highly beneficial to health.

Though once feared that Pengba might get extinct from the State, there is no cause for such worry now, claimed Dhanabir.

The Pengba Day celebration jointly organised by New Zen Aquaculture Farm and Radiance Socio-Economic Development Organisation was attended by Fisheries Minister Md Allaudin Khan, Imphal West Zilla Parishad Adhyaksha S Subashchandra, Fisheries Director K Saratkumar, Modern College lecturer Dr T Brojen and social worker L Tarpan as presidium members.

Acknowledging that the State Government had failed in its efforts to regenerate Pengba by producing its fingerlings, Fisheries Director Saratkumar, he informed that two State run farms will start producing Pengba fingerlings from next year.

Stating that efforts are being put in to take up some projects with the objective to regenerate Pengba and other indigenous fish species facing extinction, Saratkumar informed that arrangements have been made to preserve germ plasm of Pengba so as to produce Pengba-like fish species by injecting it to fishes with similar features as Pengba in case the original species disappear.

Hailing the efforts of Dhanabir, Rural Development, MOBC and Fisheries Minister Allaudin Khan noted that following the successful initiative of Dhanabir to reproduce Pengba, more than 30 fish farms are now rearing Pengba.

Pengba has already been declared the State fish of Manipur, he mentioned.

He said that plans are afoot to avail Pengba finger-lings to farmers free of cost by producing the fingerlings in two exclusive State run farms.

As for this year, the Fisheries Department is planning to provide fingerlings of Pengba, Rou and Catla varieties collected from Dhanabir�s farm to farmers.

Each farmers will be provided fingerlings worth Rs 7,500 each, said Allaudin Khan.

In addition to the fingerlings, the fish farmers will be provided Rs 1500 each to buy fish feeds, he added.

Observing that the Fisheries Department could neither help fish farmers much nor take up any substantial fishery development programmes in the State because of meagre allotted to the Department, the Minister mentioned that many beneficiaries selected for fish farming are not properly taking up the vocation.

He disclosed that some beneficiaries instead of taking fingerlings worth Rs 7,500 provided to them by the Government, they came back with just Rs 3000 in cash without the finger-lings.

He further appealed not to entertain any monetary demand in place of fingerlings this year for which Dhanabir has been entrusted to supply finger-lings.

He disclosed that only Rs 2.5 crores was allotted to Fisheries Department this year out of which only Rs 25 lakhs was left with the Department to take up development projects after deducting the amount required for payment of salaries to its employees.

Nevertheless, he exuded confidence that the budgetary allocation for Fisheries Department will be increased by Rs 10 to 15 crores in next fiscal year.