Govt plans to unleash `Blue Revolution'

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





Move Aimed At Trebling Export Of Fish & Fish Products In Next Five Years

Laying roads for `Blue Revolution' through an ambitious target, the Centre has decided to work for increasing the country's export earnings from fish and fish products from Rs 33,441 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 1,00,000 crore in the next five years.The agriculture ministry will next month come out with a new national policy on fisheries, paving the way to achieve this target through implementation of an umbrella scheme for integrated development and management of fisheries. The private sector will also be involved to achieve the objective.
The new policy will cover development and management of inland fisheries, aquaculture, marine fisheries including deep sea fishing and all activities undertaken by the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) towards realising a `Blue Revolution' in the country.
“The new policy on fisheries is ready for release early next month. The ministry will on that occasion specify how it would go for nearly three-fold increase in the country's export earnings from fish and fish products in next five years through various policy intervention with an outlay of Rs 3,000 crore for a period of five years,“ said an official.
He said, “Focus on fisheries, particularly the inland ones, will also help in realising the goal of doubling the income of farmers in next five-six year through involving them in allied activities by tapping various water bodies including newly dug up ponds across the country .“
India's fish production has increased from 7.5 lakh tonnes in 1950-51 to 100.70 lakh tonnes during 2014-15, while the export earnings touched Rs 33,441crore. It accounts for around 18% of export earnings from the agricultural sector.
India is at present the second largest producer of fish in the world after China. More than 50 different types of fish and shellfish products are exported to 75 countries.
Currently , the USA is the largest market for Indian seafood products with a share of 26.46% in terms of India's export of marine products followed by South East Asian countries (25.71%) and European Union nations (20.08%).
Asked how the country would achieve the ambitious target of three-fold increase in export earnings in the next five years, the official said the ministry had already proposed to merge all existing schemes in the fisheries sector that would mainly focus on increasing production and productivity from aquaculture and fisheries resources -both inland and marine.
Besides the increase in fish production, the integrated scheme would stimulate growth of the subsidiary and allied industries and growth of other related economic activities, especially in the coastal regions, leading to many direct and indirect benefits to the entire fisheries sector.

Source: Times of India, 20-06-2016

India’s first fish hospital to come up in Kolkata

The country’s first hospital to treat abnormalities and diseases in fish is set to come up in Kolkata by mid-2015, a senior scientist said.

Senior scientist T J Abraham, who is spearheading the project told PTI that the work has already started on the project.

He said that nearly 60-65 kinds of disease and abnormality were found in fishes in India and the one reason why West Bengal slipped from the number one position in fish production was due to the fact that 10-20 per cent of them died of diseases.

“Such hospitals are quite common in foreign countries,” Abraham, a senior fish microbiologist with the West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, said.

The institute will not only help fish farmers increase yield by reducing the number of fish deaths, but will also ensure that people will consume healthy fish, he points out.

According to Abraham, the hospital will have 50 glass aquariums, 25 circular water tanks, each with a capacity of 500 litres, to admit and treat diseased fish.

The hospital will also have a separate well-equipped pathological lab to diagnose various fish diseases.

Asked when fish growers should approach the hospital, he said, “In such cases as abnormality, sudden death, change in colour or drastic reduction of weight, they may either contact the hospital or visit it with fish and water samples.”

He said that the diseased fish would be kept in aquariums for observation and after ascertaining the disease/ abnormality, medicines and tips would be provided to the growers.

The fish hospital, which is funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, under the Union Ministry of Agriculture, has a budget of Rs five crore.

“Nearly Rs 1.70 crore will be spent on hospital construction and the rest on creating infrastructure and lab facilities,” said Abraham.

Apart from Abraham, who is heading the project, there will be another scientist and the team of the two will be assisted by 4-6 research scholars initially.

Abraham said that the hospital would document diseases affecting fish in Bengal to be forwarded to the World Animal Health Organisation, Paris of which India is a member.

Keywords: Fish, hospital, 

Sep 04 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Lakshadweep tops in fish consumption, Bengal 4th

Dipak Dash

New Delhi:





Consumption of fish in rural areas of Lakshadweep is over 16 times the national average with Goa at second spot. Contrary to popular belief, Kerala and West Bengal come third and fourth respectively . In rural areas of Chandigarh, there are hardly any takers.According to the latest data, Indians on an average consume just 269 grams of fish per month in rural areas while in urban areas it's 238 gram. Noticeably , just 282 of 1,000 households in rural areas consume fish, while the number is 209 households for urban areas. Compare this with Lakshadweep where the rural population consumes on an average 4.4 kg of fish a month. In urban areas, it's slightly less at 4.1 kg.
The latest Handbook on Fisheries Statistics released by the agriculture and animal husbandry ministry shows the second highest consumption is in Kerala, but it's just about half of the Lakshadweep's average. In Kerala, those in rural areas consume about 2.1 kg of fish a month, while in urban areas it is 1.9 kg.
One interesting part is almost all households in rural Goa eat fish while it's 893 per 1,000 households in urban areas. In Kerala, 884 rural households for every 1,000 consume fish. In case of urban areas, it's little less at 817. West Bengal, which ranks fourth in the list, has also over eight out of every 10 rural and urban households consuming fish. The report shows how export of fish and fish products have gone up in four years, mainly due to an exotic shrimp variety introduced in 2009 called L Vannamei.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Aug 29 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

Land raised walking fish explain evolution

Pune Mirror Bureau punemirror.feedback@gmail.com TWEET @ThePuneMirror





A study that forced a `walking' fish to live on land for a year caused anatomical changes that helped it walk better. The changes may explain how our fish ancestors adapted to walking

A bout 400 million years ago a group of fish began exploring land and evolved into tetrapods ­ today's amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. But just how these ancient fish used their fishy bodies and fins in a terrestrial environment and what evolutionary processes were at play remain scientific mysteries.Researchers at McGill University published in the journal Nature, turned to a living fish, called Polypterus, to help show what might have happened when fish first attempted to walk out of the water. Polypterus is an African fish that can breathe air, `walk' on land, and looks much like those ancient fishes that evolved into tetrapods. The team of researchers raised juvenile Polypterus on land for nearly a year, with an aim to revealing how these `terrestrialised' fish looked and moved differently. “Stressful environmental conditions can often reveal otherwise cryptic anatomical and behavioural variation, a form of developmental plasticity“, says Emily Standen, a former McGill student who led the project, now at the University of Ottawa.
“We wanted to use this mechanism to see what new anatomies and behaviours we could trigger in these fish and see if they match what we know of the fossil record.“
REMARKABLE ANATOMICAL CHANGES The fish showed significant anatomical and behavioural changes. The terrestrialised fish walked more effectively by placing their fins closer to their bodies, lifted their heads higher, and kept their fins from slipping as much as fish that were raised in water.
“Anatomically, their pectoral skeleton changed to became more elongate with stronger attachments across their chest, possibly to increase support during walking, and a reduced contact with the skull to potentially al low greater headneck motion,“ says Trina Du, a PhD student and study collaborator.
“Because many of the anatomical changes mirror the fossil record, we can hypothesise that the behavioural changes we see also reflect what may have occurred when fossil fish first walked with their fins on land“, says Hans Larsson, Canada Research Chair in Macroevolution at McGill and an Associate Professor at the Redpath Museum.
UNIQUE EXPERIMENT
The terrestrialised Polypterus experiment is unique and provides new ideas for how fossil fishes may have used their fins in a terrestrial environment and what evolutionary processes were at play.
Larsson adds, “This is the first example we know of that demonstrates developmental plasticity may have facilitated a large-scale evolutionary transition, by first accessing new anatomies and behaviours that could later be genetically fixed by natural selection“.