Five hundred women from marginalised families in the Sunderbans were given fish seeds and feed at a programme in Kultali on Friday.
The women were from around 40 villages in two blocks, Basanti and Gosaba.
Each of them, who have a pond in their backyard, on Friday received 8kg of fish seed and almost a year’s feed.
”The fish are Indian major carps like rohu, catla and mrigal. The fish fingerlings will grow into a marketable size within eight months. But we don’t want the beneficiaries to sell the entire produce. They are expected to keep some for domestic consumption and sell the rest,” said Aparna Roy, senior scientist at the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI).
The Barrackpore-headquartered institute has been supporting the vulnerable communities of the Sunderbans with fish farming under a central programme.
In the past decade, the institute has introduced interventions like backyard pond culture, canal fisheries and ornamental fish farming (farming of fish for aquariums) to support the livelihood of the targeted beneficiaries of Gosaba, Hingalganj, Kachukhali, Amtali, Gangasagar, Bali island, Namkhana, Kakdwip and Kultali.
More than 2,000 people, many of whom have benefited from the assistance of the institute, participated in Friday’s programme.
Aruna Mondal, who lives in Choradanga village in Kultali, received fish seeds and feed from the institute in 2021 and 2022.
She has been selling fish reared in her pond at the wholesale market in Canning. “I make around Rs 20,000 a year from this,” she said on Friday.
Before 2021, Mondal and her family members would go for fishing in rivers, which was fraught with danger and uncertainty. Ditto for many other women who got assistance on Friday.
The Sunderbans villages are vulnerable to saltwater inundation during storms and tidal waves. Villagers need to drain out water from their ponds. The institute has also helped villagers with pumps to drain the saline water out.
The CIFRI works under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The institute “strives for knowledge-based management of inland open waters for sustainable fisheries, conservation of aquatic biodiversity, integrity of ecological services and to derive social benefits from these waters,” says its website.
“The theme of International Women’s Day, 2023 was ‘accelerating equity and empowerment’. Keeping this in view, we have taken up a programme to adopt 3,000 rural women to empower them economically. Today’s programme is part of that initiative,” said B.K. Das, director of the CIFRI.