Kol Dam reservoir 'boon' for fisheries: Minister

The Koldam Dam reservoir, which has a capacity to hold up to 560 million cubic metres of water, is turning out to be a "boon" for fisheries, Himachal Pradesh's forest minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri said today.
The reservoir was formed last year under the Koldam Dam Hydropower project and is spread across 1,302 hectares in Tatta Pani area of Mandi district.
For the last one year after impounding of water in Koldam reservoir, Kasol, Bairal and Sunni-based fisheries cooperative societies did a business of Rs 1.5 lakh, Bharmouri said.
"Fish production has been started on a large scale in the Kol Damreservoir and the Fisheries department had imparted training to 120 new fishermen, grants were also disbursed for purchasing fishery nets," the minister said.

"The fishing work had been started in this reservoir which has shown encouraging results and it would get momentum in times to come which would also generate self-employment opportunities to more persons," Bharmouri added.
He said that licenses had been issued to 340 members of six fish cooperative societies under this reservoir for fishing.
Special training camps were also being organised to provide training to the fishermen besides educating them about the rules in this sector, he said.