Fisheries Facing Threat

Fisheries, one of fastest growing allied sectors of agriculture with a 7.5 per cent average annual growth, is facing a serious threat from the adverse impact of human intervention in water bodies.

Building of flood control structures and pollution caused by urban and industrial wastes is having a deleterious effect on the fisheries' productivity in rivers, according to experts of the Central Inland Capture fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI) here.

The institute's director Maniranjan Sinha said not only the output of fisheries but also the fish community structure had been hit hard by these factors.

The habitat, feeding grounds and migratory paths of aquatic organisms have also been affected, disturbing the breeding grounds of several fish species.

 

A CIFRI study of the river Ganga's fisheries has indicated that the proportion of Indian major carps (rohu, catla and mrigal) has gone down considerably.

The Catla catch, in particular, has declined drastically in middle Ganga. The proportion of catfish has, however, increased in the total fish production in both middle and lower Ganga.

The occurrence of several commercially important species _ such as Notoperus chitala, Labeo fimbriatas, Ompok pabo, Ompok bimaculatus and Mystus vittatus _ was very little in the middle and lower stretches of the Ganga.

A drastic decline in Hilsa fisheries had also been observed in the middle and lower stretches of this river after the commissioning of the Farakka barrage, he said.

Sinha said the production of inland fisheries had in the past

risen much faster than that of marine output. While the marine fish catch had increased from 23 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 29 million tonnes in 1998-99, that of inland water bodies jumped from 15.36 million tonnes to 27 million tonnes.