Keonjhar: About 20 days after Orissa POST carried a report about the sorry state of a fish breeding centre at Jhumpura in this district, a joint team of the Fisheries, Revenue and the Water Resources Departments Wednesday started measuring the area at the centre that suffered damaged due to work on the canal.
The fish breeding centre was built on 11.38 acres, while the canal takes up 6.20 acres of the farm.
The Jhumpura tehsildar was present during the demarcation. Deputy Director of Fisheries J Lakra, District Fisheries Officer Manoram Mohapatra, the SDO of canal division, Kandarpa Behera, and Assistant Fisheries Officer Priyanka Sahu were also present.
The fish breeding centre was damaged by work on a canal of the Kanpur Irrigation Project. But nothing was done to repair it, fish farmers said.
The breeding centre used to produce 22 lakh seedlings annually. The centre used to produce fishes like Rohi, Bhakura, Mirikali and China Rohi. Farmers were being provided with spawn. Many used to earn their living through fish farming.
But fish farming stopped here four years ago, and around 10 ponds of the centre were damaged by the irrigation canal.
Local fish farmers failed to get seedlings. Now they depend on private traders and spawn sellers from West Bengal. The farmers of Jhumpura, Joda and Keonjhar used to buy fish spawn from the centre.
The government had set up this fish breeding centre on 11.383 acres in 1995 and the Fisheries Department had dug 17 ponds on 5.40 decimal land.
The issue was taken up at a RPDAC (Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee) meeting. Local farmers pointed out that when a facility is damaged by a project, there is provision for compensation. But no compensation was given to the fish breeding centre, they said.
The farmers demanded an alternative site for the fish breeding centre. They had apprised the Collector and the Executive Engineer of the Kanpur Irrigation Project and the Jhumpura Tehsildar about the need for an alternative site for the breeding centre.
The District Fishery Officer had earlier issued a letter to the Revenue Department to identify land and hand it over to the Fisheries Department.
The district has four other fish spawn breeding centres at Musahakhori in Patna block and at Telkoi and Machhlao (Ghasipura) and at Digadha (Keonjhar).
PNN
