Fish industry in troubled waters

Non-availability of water and depletion of groundwater levels at the crucial breeding stage has thrown the Rs 2,000-crore fish industry (8 lakh tonne production in 1 lakh hectare per year) in Krishna and West Godavari districts into a major crisis.

The crisis is posing a threat to wipe out production in 2005-06 and deprive 40,000 farmers and 1 lakh labourers (direct employment) of their livelihood.

Along with them, 30,000 lorry crew, thousands of workers of ice factories, package industries and a score of other ancillary units may lose jobs.

The government is also likely to lose a revenue of Rs 150 crore from the industry. Farmers do not hope to pool up 5 tmc of water that is required to keep one foot deep water in tanks, in which breeding fish are monitored.

The acute water scarcity is killing breeding fish on a massive scale in 10,000 hectares of hatcheries, and stunted fish fingerlings (aged 3 months to 6-7 months) and yearlings (one-year-old), being stored and reared by every farmer.

The months from February to May is the breeding season, and around 90 per cent of female fish cultured by the hatcheries are full of eggs. They cannot survive extreme temperatures for a long time.

They are dying in thousands every day as the water level in tanks, which should be kept one foot deep, is going down alarmingly. The same is the case with fingerlings and yearlings.

The state government supplied water to rabi (second) crop in 2003, which was used to some extent by the fish farmers during the breeding season.

As farmers did not raise rabi crops in 2004 and 2005, not a drop of water trickled down from the NS canals during the two years. Last year, farmers somehow managed the breeding season with the borewells, most of which have dried up this year.

After three years of income drought, it was only last year (2004-05), that the farmers made some profits. Even if there were rains in July or August, it would not salvage the situation, as the fish eggs would disintegrate by then.

M V S Nagi Reddy, leader of Fish Farmers' Consortium, appealed to the government to rescue the fish industry by supplying water immediately so that the remaining fish can be saved.

He said that the fish markets all over the state are unhygienic. "The government should take steps to make them clean, hygienic and modern. With a production average of 3 tonnes per acre, Andhra Pradesh farmers score over their counterparts in China , which occupies the number one position in the world in terms of fish production. The size of the pond is only one acre in China but it is up to 10 acres in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh turns over 8 lakh tonnes of fish," Nagi Reddy said.

He hoped that the government would at least supply water to fish farmers on time in 2006.