Odisha Govt. To Start Cage Culture Fisheries In Hirakud Reservoir

Bhubaneswar : The demand and consumption of freshwater fish such as Indian Major Carps and other varieties are ever-increasing in Odisha. In order to increase the freshwater fish production, the State Government has come out with a new policy to promote cage culture in medium and large reservoirs of the State. Utilizing a modest fraction (1%) of the surface area, the large and medium reservoirs can contribute a substantial quantity of fish to the total inland fish production basket of Odisha.

Cage Culture fisheries is an emerging technology for the intensive production of fish and has a huge potential for increasing fish production. It is often considered as the future of reservoir fisheries which can lead to achieving self-sufficiency in the fish demand of the state and also promote entrepreneurship in aquaculture and create job opportunities.

In the first phase, cage culture will be promoted in 5 zones and 100 subzones of the Hirakud reservoir which can cover around 2400 cages. These identified sub-zones will be leased out to Primary Fishery Cooperative Societies, Fish Farmers, Private entrepreneurs or companies. Each sub-zone has a cage surface area of 600 m? and can accommodate a maximum of 24 nos. of rectangular cages of 6 m length x 4 m width x 4 m depth dimension or 3 nos. of circular cages of 16 m diameter. In a rectangular cage, around 3000 kg of fish can be harvested.

Various fish species like Catla, Rohu, Mrigal, Amur Carp, Pangasius, Mono-sex GIFT tilapia, Asian Seabass/Barramundi, Pearl spot, Butter catfish, etc will be allowed to be cage cultured. The cage culture guidelines have strict conditions for maintaining water quality, cage maintenance, fish health monitoring, etc.