Not the birds, for sure, it’s the time for the fishes to be caged to help their sustained growth under the supervision and intensive care of the aquatic scientists in Bankura.

Cage aquaculture fishing has been reintroduced in the Kansavati river dam in Bankura after a period of 16 years, which has encouraged the fishermen community, struggling against gradually declining fish in the rivers and reservoirs here.

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“The goal of this cage fish culture is enhancement of fish production in the reservoir and providing nutrition security to the locals and in the surrounding areas,” said S Radhika Aiyar, DM, Bankura.

The state fisheries department has allocated Rs 1.07cr for the cage aquaculture fishing in the Kansavati reservoir. The project is now collaborated with the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute and also the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

“A team of scientists will operate the system here for the first cycle of fish production that will enable the local officials to gain exposure and expertise over the methodology involved in the project,” said Rohan Joshi, ADM, zilla parishad, Bankura. Bankura is blessed with the Kansavati reservoir spread over 72,000 hectares at the confluence of Kansavati and Kumari, that reserves immense potentiality for fish production.

The state fisheries department, considering this, kicked off initiatives to explore the possibilities of technological intervention for the optimum capacity utilization of the reservoir water. The expertise from the CIFRI was hired for the purpose of harnessing cage fish culture.

The infrastructure of cage culture in the Kansavati dam consists of four batteries and each battery having eight 100 cubic metre area. Initially, Pangas fingerlings have been released in the cages for rearing for nine months to attain an average weight of 800 grams through scientific fish culture in order to achieve expected production of 80 MT, yielding a net profit of Rs 20.99 lakh from each of the batteries, the officials said.

A cage or a net pen is a system that confines the fish in a mesh enclosure. Cage culture, especially in dams, involves high input of nutrients in the form of feed.