In the midst of this concrete jungle, a man has taken up rooftop fish farming by creating a pond in his house here.

Meet Amarjyoti Kashyap, an environment scientist, who is rearing ornamental and other varieties of fish by creating a pond on the roof of his two-storey building on LNB Road at Hatigaon here.

Rooftop fish farming is unheard of in this part of the country and Kashyap, who heads Environ, an NGO, has emerged as a pioneer in this field.

“This is a part of urban aquaculture. Fish rearing on roof or terrace could be an alternative in the city where most of the people do not have enough land for the conventional type of fish farming,” he said.

Through this pond, Kashyap wants to demonstrate that by spending around Rs 50,000, one can easily create such a pond on the roof of their houses, which can also generate revenue.

“One can also get fresh fish from the pond for consumption and use it as an economic activity by breeding and selling ornamental fish, a profit-making venture,” Kashyap, a former professor of Lalit Chandra Bharali College’s environmental sciences department here, said.

Kashyap added that he will start rooftop domestic organic tea gardening by using organic manure and bio-pest repellent produced through the “waste assimilator” developed by him.

Through the “waste assimilator”, all biodegradable solid waste can be converted for producing vermicompost through the assimilation of microbes and earthworm. “Due to the pest infestation in tea gardens, different chemical pesticides are used and sometimes it is beyond the permissible limit. As a result, tea grown in this way becomes toxic,” he added.

“To overcome the situation and to give the benefits to all, Environ has developed a concept of producing organic manure and bio-pest repellent from household-generated biodegradable solid waste through the use of waste assimilator to promote domestic organic tea gardening,” Kashyap said.

He is hopeful that domestic organic or green tea gardening will gain ground as green tea contains epigallocatechin-3 gallate, an antioxidant, which helps treat a variety of diseases.

“Green tea has become a popular beverage for health benefits and it comes from the same plant (Camellia Sinensis) as normal tea and green tea can be processed easily at home,” he added.